South Africa Must Learn to Be Clinical at the Death with Bat and Ball

It’s getting somewhat repetitive, but with just a few months to go before the 2015 Cricket World Cup, it’s becoming quite clear that South Africa have two rather glaring weaknesses.

First, the middle order’s inconsistency and brittleness was once again laid bare.  Having won the toss and elected to bat first, South Africa’s top order stuttered. AB de Villiers and David Miller put on 122 runs for the fourth wicket, but no other batsman managed a significant score.

It meant that South Africa managed just 267 runs in their 50 overs.  The last five overs brought them just 23 runs, for the loss of two wickets.

The absence of depth and skill in the middle order is starting to hurt the Proteas in pressure situations. While a bad day at the office is expected, overreliance on four key batsmen is something that needs to change if they have any hope of competing in the World Cup.

While JP Duminy’s return will have a big impact, that still leaves the No. 7 position vulnerable. Ryan McLaren usually slots in there, but he has not adapted to Australian conditions and will be a liability during the competition. Farhaan Behardien and Rilee Rossouw have not been up to scratch in ODIs, and that leaves South Africa with precious little time to prop up the middle order.

There is no time left to test out an alternative option. As per NDTV, the deadline for announcing squads for the competition is 11 January 2015. Following this ODI series against Australia, South Africa’s next assignment is against the West Indies, and that only begins on 16 January 2015. This means that if South Africa wanted to prop up their middle order, they would have to be pragmatic in their selection and choose a player who has not yet been tested.

While it’s unlikely that all of their top-order batsmen will continue their slump in form throughout the World Cup, a batting boost would do them a world of good.

That is, however, just one problem. The other glaring weakness is South Africa’s bowling towards the latter stages of the innings. Bowling in the last five overs has been a big concern for some time now, but South Africa took their struggles with bowling plans to the next level on Friday.

Having pegged Australia back to 98-5 in Melbourne on Friday, South Africa were on track to record a victory. AB de Villiers deserves credit for opting to be aggressive in the 25^th over. He brought Dale Steyn back for an extra spell, and it yielded the wicket of Glenn Maxwell and pushed the required rate to over eight an over, but it all went awry very quickly from there. James Faulkner's late charge also showed that South Africa certainly haven't looked into the opposition as carefully as they should have. 

As impressive as Steve Smith and Matthew Wade were, South Africa’s field settings and bowling lengths were completely wrong. They might have been without the experience of Imran Tahir and Vernon Philander, but even a bowler as menacing as Steyn is far too often found out as an innings drags on.

It’s not an easy fix, but it’s something South Africa are aware of.

Coach Russell Domingo admitted at the post-match press conference that South Africa still have a lot of hard work ahead before the World Cup rolls around in three months’ time.

"They bat a long way down, they have a lot of depth in their batting," he said. "They were probably a lot better than us in the back end with the ball in terms of the lengths they bowled, the change-up of pace was also really good. With the bat we probably didn’t play smart enough, we looked for too many boundaries and not enough ones and twos in these big fields. That is a lot of learning for us particularly in that phase of the game."

From a bowling perspective, though, there is a bit more time to settle things down and refine those plans towards the end of an innings. Unlike with the batting, where there is a lack of depth and talent, the bowling simply needs to rethink their strategy.

That South Africa are aware of the nagging issues is a good start. Whether they’ll be able to find a fix for their weaknesses in time for the World Cup, only time will tell.

Quotes obtained firsthand.