Proteas’ quest to be boring is what is needed right now

SOUTH Africa’s goal as a Test team is to be boring.

Taking their cue from the new Test captain Dean Elgar, the Proteas are pushing for boring.

It’s not the right word for it really, but it’s the simplest way of defining how they need to play for now. They need a foundation after too many years spent lurching between good and bad – at times very bad – as far as their Test match play is concerned.

And that means doing nothing fancy. As a bowler, stick to the channel on and around the offstump. As a batsman, don’t unfurl all the shots in your repertoire.

Kyle Verreynne spent the days between the first and second Tests in the Caribbean learning the latter. Fewer shots, might equal more runs. It won’t be pretty, but pretty doesn’t win Test matches, unless you’re Brian Lara, and there’s only ever been one Brian Lara. These are the lessons South Africa’s players need to learn. Elgar in taking over as captain has sought to instil that as the philosophy for the team. It won’t be everyone’s cup of tea. Elgar has talked about returning to an ‘old school South African style’. By which he means grit and grind over flair and finesse. It’s what made Gary Kirsten so successful as a Test batsman, Ashwell Prince too and in the last few years Elgar as well.

A good Test team will have a balance, of course – alongside Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs could thrive, while Prince’s obduracy, meant AB de Villiers was free to display his all-round strokeplay.

Besides Quinton de Kock, the current Proteas Test team doesn’t yet have that flair at its disposal with the bat. So Elgar’s call to be boring, to, as Verreynne explained it, “restrict” himself is understandable.

This is a Test team still on a journey to find its identity. That seems to have been forgotten by many spectators, who just study South Africa’s historical record and go: ‘well of course they must beat the West Indies.’ Meanwhile the

West Indies were ranked above South Africa on the ICC Test table ahead of the current series.

In Verreynne and Keegan Petersen, the Proteas have two batsmen playing in crucial positions, who only made their debuts last week. Aiden Markram is in form, but still trying to re-establish himself as a Test batsman after form and confidence deserted him, Rassie van der Dussen is seeking to find the right balance to his batting and De Kock is now dealing with being more liberated after his brief stint as captain.

Then there’s Wiaan Mulder, who potentially could be the most important player in the team in the next decade given the balance his skills could provide, but who is also learning about himself as a professional player, while trying to establish himself at international level. That’s a lot for everyone to deal with, hence Elgar asking for patience before the series, and acknowledging at the same time that he and his team will get very little of that. So, to simplify matters as best as possible, he’s demanded they be boring, to not ask too much of themselves and not press too hard too soon. They’re a team that’s still learning, and being boring probably suits them for now.