South Africa bank on golf to avoid a good tour spoiled

“We’ll have a few days to clear your minds, let the dust settle and focus on the third Test.” - Dean Elgar

Telford Vice / London

GOLFERS contend that hitting a stationary ball properly is more difficult than meeting a moving target successfully. If South Africa use their down time wisely, the proof of that theory could be seen at the Oval in the coming days.

Dean Elgar’s team were dismissed for 151 and 179 at Old Trafford last week, where England won by an innings and 85 runs in three days. That levelled matters in the wake of the visitors’ victory, by an innings and 12 runs after they bowled out the English for 165 and 149, also in three days, at Lord’s the week before. The decider in this series of wild extremes is at the Oval from September 8.

The South Africans are using some of the 11 days between the second and third Tests for what team management have called “a breakaway in the west Midlands”. England’s squad have also taken a break, except for Zak Crawley and Harry Brook, who are involved in the Hundred. The home side can afford the luxury of not thinking about the series until they have to. Less so South Africa. Asked what the squad would be doing, Cricbuzz was told golf would feature among their activities.

If that helps Elgar and his players middle the ball more often than they did in Manchester — where Keegan Petersen’s 42 in the second innings was their top score in a match in which nine of their 20 batters were dismissed for single-figure scores — there will be no complaints. But some of their supporters will doubtless take umbrage at the squad not spending every spare moment in the nets ironing out the shanks and slices in their batting. As thing stand, they will train again for the first time on Saturday — a full week since they last picked up a bat.

“Sometimes you can go into panic mode when things like this happen,” Elgar told a press conference after England won at Old Trafford on Saturday. “Myself and the coach [Mark Boucher] are definitely not the kinds of guys who panic; we know we’re still a good side. Sometimes time away from the game is not a bad thing. We have two days off now but we do have some time away from the game which was already planned prior to us coming on this trip. We’ll use that period for better connection within the group. It’s not like it’s disconnected, but let’s just touch base again.

“Let’s not forget why we’re here: we’re here to win a Test series and we’re still in a great position to win a Test series. We’ll have a few days to clear your minds, let the dust settle and focus on the third Test.”

Elgar is correct in that his team cannot have become poor in the few days between the Lord’s and Old Trafford Tests. Rather, they squandered the advantage they earned in the first match, where their pace quartet of Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortjé and Marco Jansen intimidated and unsettled the English, by leaving out Jansen to deploy another spinner, Simon Harmer, alongside Keshav Maharaj in the second game. That left no choice but to bat first when Elgar won the toss in Manchester. The pitch was drier there, and the overhead conditions didn’t allow for the amount of swing seen at Lord’s. So the case for a second spinner was plausible.

But had South Africa retained their XI from the first Test they would have been able to — as they did in London — insert England. And thus continue the domination that had been paused just six days previously. If South Africa had kept their Lord’s combination intact and England had won the toss, the home side would have faced a tough decision: bat first on a fresh pitch against an attack you know have undone you just the other day, or risk batting last on what would be then be a difficult surface.

The impact on the South Africans of what happened at Old Trafford could be gauged from the contrast of how they approached their bonus days off. Asked the day before that match what his players did after Lord’s, Elgar said: “Each person went in their own direction. You just had to make sure you were back at the hotel for our 11 o’clock departure on Monday. Otherwise it would have been an expensive Uber to get to Manchester.”

Elgar’s players don’t have the privilege of going their own way on the return journey to London. At least no-one will have to worry about getting an Uber.

First published by Cricbuzz.