South Africa‘s batting coach Ashwell Prince faced the media after his side’s first innings ended at 284, with the hosts 106 runs behind Australia in the first Test at Kingsmead, Durban. The home side’s batters produced a string of poor strokes on a pitch that offered little assistance to the bowlers, leaving South Africa with a significant deficit to overcome.
The innings was marked by a series of dismissals that cut short promising partnerships. Six South African batters reached 30 or more, yet not one of them went on to make 50. Only David Bedingham and Simon Harmer, who finished unbeaten on 35, faced more than 70 balls each. Prince was candid about the credit due to Australia, who put on a total of 390 courtesy of a career-best 190 from Matt Renshaw.
“Matt Renshaw played an unbelievable innings, so a lot of credit must go to him. He took the approach of wearing the bowlers down. He did that really well. But every player who walks out for every team has their personal approach to batting. Some guys are more aggressive than others. Some guys tend to go after their strokes more than others. Over long periods of time they reap the rewards. And sometimes it doesn’t pay off,” Prince said in the press conference after the day’s play, quoted by Cricbuzz.
What went wrong for South Africa’s batters at Kingsmead?
The innings was undermined by three half-century partnerships that were all surrendered without being converted. Aiden Markram and Bedingham shared one such stand, Tristan Stubbs and Wiaan Mulder another, and Harmer and Anrich Nortje a third. Australia also built three fifty-plus stands in their innings, but they extended one of them, between Matt Renshaw and Nathan Lyon, to 134, which was the record ninth-wicket partnership for Australia against South Africa in Tests.
Ryan Rickelton’s dismissal was equally damaging in its timing. He drove loosely at Cummins to third slip just nine balls into the innings, with 43 deliveries still remaining in Saturday’s play. At the other end of the order, Keshav Maharaj dropped to one knee and slapped a crossbatted shot off Mitchell Starc to cover. Nortje, batting at No. 11, was the one exception, pushing forward correctly before nudging to slip to end the innings.
Marco Jansen provided brief entertainment, pulling Cummins for two boundaries from his first two balls and flat-batting the same bowler past mid-on before smearing a sweep off Lyon and hitting two cover drives off Josh Hazlewood, the second of which took South Africa past the follow-on target. However, Australia identified that Jansen had only one mode, and he soon drove at a Hazlewood delivery, nearly gifted a catch at mid-on, and then shovelled the next ball to mid-off.
How did Prince respond to questions about South Africa’s aggressive approach?
Despite the visible frustration of watching his batters dismiss themselves with rash strokes on a calm surface, Prince was measured in his assessment at the press conference. He pushed back on the suggestion that excessive aggression was the root cause.
“I don’t think it was too much aggression. I think the timing of the dismissals wasn’t great. Every time we looked like getting something going, we lost a wicket,” he said.
South Africa now face the challenge of either saving the match or finding a way to overhaul Australia’s first-innings advantage, a task that will require considerably more application than they showed in their first innings at Kingsmead.
