In opposite corners of the world, there was a South African cricket team facing an Indian one. The men had come off an emotionally draining final of the T20 World Cup in Barbados with India clinching a humdinger, while the women were embroiled in a red-ball slogfest in Chennai.
For years, the Proteas (particularly the men’s side) have been chided with the choker’s tag, courtesy of their inability to seal the deal in crunch games. This has potentially become a bit self-fulfilling many times when the South Africans have their backs to the wall.
Saturday night followed that fateful script with the Proteas falling short by seven runs after 30 runs were needed in the last five overs. The women’s side were all in their rooms in Chennai, watching what could have been the biggest moment in their nation’s cricketing history.
“I’d be disappointed if you didn’t ask (about the final),” the women’s side’s batting coach Baakier Abrahams told reporters at the end of day three of the one-off Test between South Africa and India here on Sunday.
“I wouldn’t say extra motivation, but as a cricketing country, we do feel a bit for the men. This morning, you could see this sense of wanting to show a good account of ourselves in solidarity with our men’s side,” he added.
The women were in troubled waters themselves. After Harmanpreet Kaur’s India had bludgeoned its way to 603/6d – courtesy of a double ton from Shafali Verma and 149 off Smriti Mandhana’s bat – the Proteas were at a defiant yet inadequate 236/4 with the looming risk of the follow on. Marizanne Kapp was on 69 but the cream of the South African batting had already made its way back to the pavilion.
However, India proved far too strong for the visitors, led by a smiling assassin in Sneh Rana who first removed Kapp with the extra bounce she was getting off an otherwise subdued Chennai track, knocking her off stump. She then proceeded to devour the tail, piece by piece, finishing with a record-equalling innings haul of eight wickets. South Africa was nowhere close to comfort, trailing by a whopping 337 runs.
Harmanpreet enforced the follow-on and the Proteas had to trudge back to try and find a way to see day three through safely. Skipper Laura Wolvaardt lost the support of Anneke Bosch early. The elegant right-hander looked a bit shifty as she tried to get a read on India’s bowling game plan. Ironically, her swatting at everything remotely hittable went against the blueprint she had identified of prioritising defence and not getting tempted to drive everything past cover.
Bosch’s dismissal brought the level-headed Luus to the crease. The former South African captain had almost doubled up as Kapp’s meditation coach on the day prior when the pair resisted every missile coming their way from the Indian artillery. Now, it was time to help the young Wolvaardt centre herself.
Her twitching cross shots and nervy running made way for an assured defence. It might have helped that she whipped out her signature cover drive early on, something India refused to allow in the first innings with a field asphyxiating her for space.
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“The conditions dictated how she went about her innings. The wicket was slowing up more. She has been brilliant in assessing conditions and her own style of play in it,” Abrahams pointed out.
“Laura was able to progress from session to session according to the requirements (at the time). She was able to show adaptability and a positive mindset as and when required. he was able to be more circumspect and apply herself for long periods. She has worked out a game plan for herself that she feels works for now and she’ll be back again to start fresh tomorrow,” he added.
Wolvaardt had only managed a 36-ball 20 in the first innings, with the same aforementioned issues plaguing her. Had she endured and seen the worst off, South Africa might have been in a very different place in this game. Or maybe not. Hindsight is always 20/20.
She chose not to fixate on the what-ifs and adopted a strategy Harmanpreet spoke of ahead of the fixture - breaking the task down to little bits and viewing them as such.
“To be able to help Laura, who is not really known for playing spin – which I think is totally wrong, she plays spin very well at the moment…,” Luus had said after day two, almost foreshadowing what was to follow soon.
Wolvaardt faced 198 balls of spin of which she made 67 runs. She was in no rush to score and focussed on sinking her feet into the wicket. She increasingly grew in confidence to oscillate between driving on the front foot and bringing her back foot into play to allow more time to send the ball away from stumps purposefully.
Every now and then, she would push past the field or time the ball immaculately to scoop out a boundary. She cut, drove and pulled and shuffled her feet well to increasingly look more fluent. She ended the day unbeaten on 93, looking ever so mildly in a hurry to tick off the hundred. However, Wolvaardt will have to wait till day four to know if there’s a Chepauk century written in her stars.
South Africa dropped anchor so remarkably that Smriti Mandhana was seen egging the crowd by the ropes where she was stationed to cheer louder for the home side, perhaps for some morale-boosting assistance.
Luus though needed none of that to keep herself going.
“I think it’s been a bit of a journey with Sune,” Abrahams said.
“I did the ODI series as a consultant against Sri Lanka. She didn’t have the best series that she personally wanted and she was really hurt at that stage. She was able to take a couple of weeks off from the game and just reflect. Credit to the medical staff for getting her to a level of fitness and working on certain aspects. We, the support staff, came in for the cricketing stuff. But the main thing we spoke about was her ‘why.’ What was her driver? What was the motivation? She came up with some really, really strong information around that as a driving force. And then it was just ironing out one or two technical things. But the biggest shift has been the mindset. She’s got a lot of tools in the bag and options that you can apply, and it’s about freeing up mentally to be able to do that, to have the mindset to play in the style that she’s comfortable with and wants to play and just to encourage that.”
Abrahams took over barely a few weeks ago as the full-time batting coach and a lot of the conversations around the team have been about adding weight to one’s contributions in the middle.
“One conversation we had was that she got a score in the first innings but it wasn’t a match-defining score. It was always going to be about backing one performance with another and never accepting that I’ve got a score so I can sit back a little bit. That was the most impressive part of her innings. I think it was a lesson for the rest of the team as well. The moment you get a good performance, make sure you go and back it up with another one. Don’t let the gap get too big and allow complacency to set in.
“Her last hundred was against Pakistan. She has two hundreds in the subcontinent. As a senior player in tough conditions, having to follow on, the mental fortitude she showed was exceptional. What you saw was a culmination of her over a long period where she didn’t score as many runs as she would like and how she’s trying to right the wrongs of the past in a positive way.”
Control C. Control V. Luus perfectly replicated her resistance to the Indian spinner quartet. This is a venue that has applauded the likes of Dravid for his relentless defending. They found a similar foot soldier who let nothing pass for the three hours she occupied on the field. But she did change something. Luus was happy to leave deliveries that did nothing for her and punish the odd balls when a frustrated India’s lines strayed.
For Abrahams, all this contributes to the big picture of wanting more Tests for South Africa.
“Mentally it’s always going to be tough. You’re battling the heat, the conditions, you’re battling the pitch. So we had to go back to our values and characteristics and what type of team we wanted to be under pressure. There were some signs we showed of our resilience when we were under pressure and those are things we want to build on going forward. So if there’s going to be more tests for women, we now have positive reference points to build on and we’ll only get better and the level of competition will get better and women’s Test cricket will benefit.”
South Africa’s Captain Laura Wolvaardt and Suen Luus partership scoring 190 runs against India during the lone test match between South Africa and India. | Photo Credit: JOTHI RAMALINGAM B/The Hindu
Few would have expected a fourth day in this encounter. England didn’t get past the first session on day three. Luus and Wolvaardt underlined that the visitors, despite having little to no red-ball context and non-existent preparatory resources for the format, didn’t go down without a fight. On Monday, the focus will be one thing and one thing alone - saving the Test. A wily Sneh, a slightly refreshed Indian field with the weight of its home triumphs in the past backing it and some arresting humidity will make things harder.
Abrahams looked to count on how the unit has tried to give individuals their space in a team performance as a way to draw out more accountability. Luus benefited from the same, chipping away to a hundred that saw her first pumping through the two runs she ran to bring up the three-figure mark.
“I think South Africans, in general, are a proud sporting nation and when our backs are against the wall, we’re very resilient and there was an opportunity for us to showcase again where that resilience comes from. We spoke about partnerships but the language has started to be about record-breaking partnerships, we’re talking about record-breaking hundreds, individual milestones that complement what the team is trying to achieve.”
South Africa will have two players in the middle who have both needed the assured presence of Luus to keep things simple and sans panic.
“It’s funny. They (Wolvaardt and Kapp) are really curious about the game. As they walked off, they weren’t even in the changing room for five minutes before they started asking what to do tomorrow, what the game plan and the preparation looked like. Their minds have already moved towards that at the end of the day’s play. I think as the game unfolds, they will be able to feed off each other. At times maybe Laura will have the composure because the game situation is flowing for her and she may have to keep Marizanne in check and vice versa. It’s part of building a partnership. In cricket, you’re not going to always have an upward trajectory, there will be ebbs and flows. Sometimes, you’re going to be patient and get five runs and sometimes, you’ll get those half volleys and hit 15 runs in 15 minutes. We’ll take it as it comes.”
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