Boucher reflects on ‘extremely disappointing’ two days for Proteas

After another dismal start to a Test series that sees the Proteas in huge trouble of falling to a big innings defeat within three days, coach Mark Boucher admits that this has become a trend and the coaches need to work out what is going wrong with the team.

South Africa scored just 95 in their first innings, watched New Zealand amass 482 all out in theirs and then slipped to 4/3 in their second innings before Temba Bavuma (22no) and Rassie van der Dussen (9no) showed a bit of fight to get them to the close of play on day two on 34/2.

However, they still need an improbable 353 runs just to make the hosts bat again and on the basis of play that does not look likely at all.

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“We haven’t started well here at all and as I said this isn’t the first time it has happened. It’s something that has been happening for quite some time now, so as coaches we are trying to find out the reasons for that,” admitted Boucher.

“We do a lot of talking before a series and a lot of planning. The plans are right, I think that we just haven’t been able to implement those plans and the energies have been low.

“So it’s something we can’t put our fingers on at the moment, but we will certainly go back to our drawing boards and try and find a way to become better at the start of a series.”

All three facets of the Proteas play has been found wanting, with their batting and fielding of particular concern.

The batsmen have managed just 129 runs for the loss of 13 wickets, while in the field they made seven costly drop catches over the Black Caps innings.

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The bowlers haven’t been much better, but will point to the dreadful fielding as a reason they conceded so many runs, but with New Zealand batting at a run rate of over four runs to the over throughout their whole innings, it shows that there was plenty of poor bowling on display.

“It’s been a tough two days, extremely disappointing especially after the series we had against India. I think there was a high expectation from everyone and we just haven’t come out and given the energy that was expected from us,” explained Boucher.

“As coaches we will keep going back and looking at ourselves and see how we can best prepare the players for tours. So it’s a funny one, I haven’t been able to put my finger on it at the moment, I can just see the energies are way below par and the results have shown that.

“We lost the toss, we got behind the eight ball after the first session and we just haven’t been able to get back in the game in all three departments, our batting, our bowling and our fielding has been very disappointing.”