‘I am lost for words’ – Mark Boucher on ‘tough nut’ Keegan Petersen’s showing against India

South Africa coach lauds his team for playing “the pressure moments pretty well”

“As a player, you feel like the buck can stop with you. As a coach, your hands are tied behind your back. You haven’t got the chance to go out there and change the state of the game,” he said afterwards. “From a nerves perspective, it was up there with one of my more nervous days.”

“When you’re in the batting change-room, the runs always seem a mile away. When you’re in the fielding change-room, you always feel like there is never quite enough. So it was trying to find a bit of a balance,” he said. “We knew the conditions were going to be really tough.”

South Africa’s inexperienced line-up were against the best Indian pace attack that has ever visited these shores on a surface with uneven bounce, but their hope was that the weather and the opposition bowlers’ workload in the series so far would help cause them to wilt. “It was really hot outside. We knew that the amount they bowled in the first innings (76.3 overs) would eventually play it’s part so getting through the first hour unscathed was very important. It just settles the change-room,” Boucher said.

Keegan Petersen and Rassie van der Dussen put on 47 runs in the first hour and though they looked like they might be dismissed at any moment, they weren’t. “I liked the intensity the guys batted with. We went out saying we’ve got to look to score,” Boucher said.

“He is in a good position to have a guy like Dean [Elgar] next to him, who really does back him and he is a tough nut. Batting at No. 3, you’ve got to be tough, you’ve got to know your game, you’ve got to be technically sound. It’s a very tough position to play in, in South Africa, in our conditions, batting at No. 3. The way he has come through in this series, I am lost for words. In a big series like this, against big players, to be man of the series is fully deserved.”

“I believe we turned a corner quite a while ago. Our results have been pretty solid over the last six months to a year. We are in a good space at the moment. Our feet are firmly on the ground. We are by no means the finished product, but we’ll enjoy this win.”

Mark Boucher, after South Africa’s triumph in Cape Town

“We’ve got Dean who led from the front. We’ve got Temba as the vice-captain, who is the same sort of fighter with the same spirit. When you’ve got two leaders like that, the guys are going to follow,” Boucher said. “Both of them stood up with regards to their own games. If you’ve got the fighters as leaders and they are prepared to show it with bat or ball, it’s probably going to be the character of the team.”

Asked if this series win represents a turning in the very long corner of losses, Boucher left it for all of us to decide. “It’s up to you guys to make that call whether we’ve turned the corner. I believe we turned a corner quite a while ago. Our results have been pretty solid over the last six months to a year,” he said. “We are in a good space at the moment. Our feet are firmly on the ground.

“We are by no means the finished product, but we’ll enjoy this win. This team is on their own mission. If people want to jump on the back of that, that’s great and that will be much appreciated. We’ve been through some tough times of late. The team is driven in a way that is pretty special. It’s a special change-room to be in. I am incredibly proud of where they’ve come from over a short period of time and the results are starting to come through, which is fantastic for everyone.”

Specifically, the way South Africa are approaching big moments has Boucher feeling as though he may not get the urge to go out there and change the state of the game himself again. “We played the pressure moments pretty well. We are not winning all of them but when we were losing a session, we were not losing it badly and that keeps us in the game. When we lost that first session in the first Test, we lost it so badly, we couldn’t get back into the game. Although we did try very hard, we probably lost too much in one session. Now, our guys are playing good pressure cricket at the moment.”