OBAKENG MELETSE
The Proteas will begin their tour of the West Indies tomorrow with a tour match against a West Indies Invitational XI, followed by the first Test next week at the Queens Park Oval in Trinidad.
The visitors won the two-match Test series 2-0 the last time they made the long trip to the Caribbean in 2021.
This time, they will come up against a battered and bruised young Windies side in transition and recently mauled 3-0 by England. There will never be a better opportunity for Temba Bavuma and his troops to get their World Test Championship campaign on track.
Here, we look at the four talking points ahead of the Proteas tour of the West Indies.
Beware the wounded island man
On paper, Bavuma and his Proteas side have the edge in experience and they have all the right tools to rub salt into the wounds of the home side. However, even though they were whitewashed, the West Indies offered a lot of resistance against a tough English bowling attack. With a lot of movement on offer, they managed to build a couple of frustrating partnerships.
Their score of 457 in the first innings of the second Test match gave them a handy 41- run lead, but they couldn’t capitalise on it, allowing England to seize back the advantage and set them a target of 385 to win, which they failed to chase down.
The home side have an inexperienced top order
Kraigg Brathwaite was expected to lead from the front with both his captaincy and as an opening batter. His six outings as a batter could only produce 166 runs at an average of 28. His wicket up front could be crucial as the rest of the batters to follow him are short of Test-match cricket experience.
Jayden Seales and Alzarri Joseph danger to Proteas batters
With the exception of Bavuma and Aiden Markram, the rest of the top and middle-order batters only have a total of 29 caps between them. South Africa’s batting line-up is still fairly new to Test cricket and this could be a weakness the opening bowling pair of the West Indies could look to exploit.
The pairing of Seales and Joseph picked up 23 wickets against England, with the 22-year-old Seales picking up 13 of those and the more economical of the two.
The battle of the spinners
Coach Shukri Conrad has selected two spinners to go on tour. Keshav Maharaj holds the advantage over Dane Piedt, who replaces Simon Harmer as the second spinner after a solid outing earlier this year against New Zealand.
A spinner is always expected to play a crucial role and they come into play a lot more the longer the game goes on. The West Indies spinning pair of Kevin Sinclair and Gudakesh Motie failed to have a telling impact against England and they only managed to pick up six wickets between them.
Maharaj and South Africa will go into the first Test with a clear advantage in this battle as the 34-year-old is a lot more experienced and settled than the Windies pair, should they get the nod to play.