“For us, mentally, it’s about cricket – what is required for us to come here and win.” – Malibongwe Maketa hopes the focus stays on the field in Australia.
Telford Vice / Cape Town
“WE know what you did last month,” South Africa’s players can be sure of hearing, laced with appropriate profanities, from their opponents during the Test series that starts at the Gabba next Saturday.
Six members of South Africa’s current squad were party to the unthinkable in Adelaide 31 days ago, when they were in the XI who lost to the Netherlands and consequently crashed out of the men’s T20 World Cup. Two more who were in that mournful dressing room, as travelling reserves, are back in Australia.
How will Malibongwe Maketa, the visitors’ interim coach, make Temba Bavuma, Marco Jansen, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortjé, Kagiso Rabada and Lizaad Williams concentrate on what lies ahead rather than what is in the still raw, recent past? Especially when they have the Australians in their ear doing the opposite?
“It’s totally different formats and we have made sure that, mentally and physically, the guys have had a longer break,” Maketa told reporters from Brisbane on Tuesday, a reference to Bavuma and Rabada not playing domestic cricket before the tour. “Now that we’re here the focus is on how we are going to go about winning this series.
“The players who were here during the World Cup have contributed in terms of [discussing] the conditions, albeit that they were T20 conditions. We have been challenging them to make sure they are putting their energy into the team, which is what they’ve done. Test cricket brings different pressures and the mental switch has definitely happened, and earlier than we expected. The energy that we’ve received from them has been positive.”
New as Maketa is in his position — he was appointed on November 2 having served as Ottis Gibson’s assistant from August 2017 until July 2019 — he will know that a Test series in Australia is about more than cricket. In November 2012 it was about a dossier the Australians allegedly had compiled on their opponents that, on cursory inspection, read more like lightly edited sections of Mickey Arthur’s autobiography than anything revelatory or insightful. Four years later it was about the intimate relationship between Faf du Plessis, the mints in his mouth, and the ball.
The off-field stakes have been raised incrementally since South Africa completed their first ever Test series victory in Australia in January 2009, no doubt because they have followed that success with two more. It’s not that the Australian press favours the home side, who are invariably held to a far higher standard than opponents — as was proved again during the 2018 ball-tampering scandal. Rather, a highly competent and competent media don’t hold back. Deference is a dirty word. Every angle is explored and exploited to the full, and to a degree not often reached in South Africa.
Good luck trying to dissuade Australian reporters from writing about a change being forced in the batting order after Kyle Verreynne’s grandfather suffered a heart attack in the stands — as South Africa’s team management tried to do, unsuccessfully, when that happened during the Lord’s Test in August. Similarly, Dean Elgar’s assertion last week that the recalled Theunis de Bruyn had “gone through a lot of personal things which I’ll never speak of” is sure to be revisited in Australia if De Bruyn is picked, and particularly if he does well. How might Maketa manage that challenge?
“It’s difficult, but our experience tells us each series has had its own hiccups. For us, mentally, it’s about cricket — what is required for us to come here and win. That’s been the driving force. We’ve got enough personnel and support to make sure we deal with whatever situation we might encounter.”
For now, Maketa appears intent on forging the important bond with Elgar: “Our relationship is strong and based on hard work. We’re similar in what we’re looking for in terms of the team and the performance. Like I said to the guys when I joined the team, I’m here to support Dean in every way to make sure that he not only gets what he wants but that he gets the guys onside in terms of performances.”
Maketa attained his level four certificate — the highest qualification in the field in South Africa — since September 2015, and would seem to have a firm grip on his boundaries as a coach: “The only way I can affect the game is through preparation; I know the guys are not liking me at the moment in the sense that we’ve had some really hard [training] sessions. Once the game starts I hand over and the biggest thing then is how do we support the players as a coaching staff. And consistently asking ourselves questions on how we can turn the game around or how we can stay ahead in the game, and giving that information to the players and to Dean to make sure we support them.
“I’m more relaxed when the game starts. I know I’ll be comfortable that we’ve done all the work and everything that’s required for us to go out there and perform. Everything else is down to the players. As a coaching staff, I encourage us not to get in the way of the players but to trust the work that they’ve done and make sure the environment is conducive for them to perform.”
Maketa spoke the day after England had found ways to win in Rawalpindi on a pitch that was the antithesis of the swinging and seaming conditions that helped them claim victory in six of the seven Tests they played at home this year. England beat Pakistan, by 74 runs, on Monday despite the match yielding an aggregate of 1,768 runs, the third most in Test history and the most since 1939. Under coach Brendon McCullum and captain Ben Stokes, the English could be said to be revolutionising the oldest format of the game. Might South Africa try to emulate them?
“There’s different takes to getting people to the ground,” Maketa said. “We know if you start winning people will come. The Australia of old made their goal scoring around four [runs an over] to make sure they were getting people to the ground, and they were still winning. It was a win-win for them.
“For us, it’s about going out there and winning. We know that, back home, people will support winning teams regardless of what happens. That’s how we’re looking to set out our stall. We want to play good, attractive cricket; brave cricket. But Test cricket is meant to be played for five days. If it means we win in the last session on the fifth day, we’ll take that.”
Maketa should prepare to be reminded that England’s Bazballers did indeed show the patience to win in the last session of the fifth day, and to be asked if he is driving his players too hard — shortly after he spoke, team management said Wednesday’s planned training session had been cancelled. Welcome to Australia, coach.
Cricbuzz
Bulletproof Truth 