Zaahier Adams
Proteas Test wicketkeeper-batter Kyle Verreynne is off to Nottinghamshire to ply his trade in the English County Championship where he will gain more time out in the middle in red-ball cricket.
Verreynne will be joining his fellow Proteas Test and Western Province teammate Dane Patterson at Trent Bridge for the next month as an overseas professional.
The 27-year-old is fresh off a two-match series in the West Indies where he threatened with scores of 39, 21 and 59 without kicking on to something really substantial. But instead of being able to build on those starts, Verreynne and the rest of his Proteas Test teammates will only gather in about six weeks for another truncated two-match series in Bangladesh.
Proteas Test coach Shukri Conrad lamented the fact that his team’s batting unit remains their “Achilles heel” and that “soft dismissals” hampered their progress despite winning the series 1-0.
No batter on either side managed to score a century with captain Temba Bavuma’s 86 in the first innings of the opening Test in Trinidad and Tobago the highest score by a South African across the series.
Verreynne agrees with Conrad’s sentiments, but feels that the current status quo is not conducive to building any momentum as a batter in red-ball cricket, especially with South Africa’s forthcoming domestic first-class season once again restricted to only seven matches.
“For most of us, we haven’t played red-ball cricket for a long time. I think sometimes it’s quite difficult to get into the mode of batting for long periods of time,” Verreynne exclusively told Independent Newspapers from Guyana.
“There is no substitute for time in the middle. You can have as many practices as you want with the red ball, and many warm-up matches as you want, but at the end of the day the only thing that gets you accustomed to batting for long periods is actually playing.
“Seven (first-class) games (in a domestic season) isn’t really enough. If you compare it to players in other countries, they are playing 14, 15 games a season. There is definitely an advantage to that.
“A two-match Test series also doesn’t really help. We were sitting in the changeroom and chatting about how we actually feel like we are now in the space to go dominate a third Test.
“A two-match series doesn’t really show what we are about. But there’s no third Test and we now have to wait a month-and-a-half for the next one. It is quite difficult to get better if you’re not playing because you only get better if you’re playing.
“So, from that point of view it is a little bit frustrating. But at the end of the day that’s the situation we’re in and just have to get used to. Hopefully, with the busy summer we do have, those things will only get better and better.”
Verreynne also felt that the combination of short series with big gaps between them also increases the pressure on players to perform.
“When you are playing and games are coming thick and fast, it is quite a nice space to be in,” he said.
“If you’re doing well, you can kind of run with it and stay in form. In the reverse, if you have one or two bad games, the next game is around the corner for you to rectify it.
“If you are playing months apart … I do think it adds a little bit of pressure on us. It goes for everyone. If I am feeling pressure, I’m sure the guy next to me is feeling the same. Everyone is in the same boat.
“It definitely does increase the pressure. There is already a lot of pressure playing international cricket because you are judged on your output. So, not playing as frequently certainly heightens that a bit.”
Verreynne has flown directly from the Caribbean to England where he will spend the next three weeks featuring in three Division One County Championship four-day matches for Nottinghamshire.