Raw Protea an example for Aussie quicks

With less than 40 hours to remedy a below-par bowling effort from an inexperienced attack, Australia might be advised to look to an equally raw opponent for some answers.

A career total of 115 ODIs shared by the six bowlers the revamped world champions employed in Friday’s bruising six-wicket loss to South Africa was identified as a key reason as to why the Proteas stormed to victory with almost 15 overs to spare.

But the notion that greenhorn bowlers struggle to hold their nerve under the glaring spotlight of international cricket and the scalding heat applied by white-hot batters had been challenged in the hours before the Australians took the ball.

When 20-year-old all-rounder Andile Phehlukwayo, the second-youngest player in the match and an international cricketer for less than a week, recovered from a horror start to his South Africa career to emerge as the game’s most successful bowler.

Outperforming seasoned cohorts Dale Steyn, Wayne Parnell and Imran Tahir as well as established 20-year-old teammate Kagiso Rabada to claim 4-44 from 10 overs in conditions that offered as much encouragement to seamers as the Highveld does to surfers.

Claiming a prized trifecta of wickets – Australia’s opener Aaron Finch, captain Steve Smith and big-hitting Mitchell Marsh – after conceding 16 runs in his opening over and fearing he would be banished from the bowling crease for the remainder of the afternoon as a result.

As the engagingly articulate former schoolboy hockey star from Durban explained at game’s end, the resolve and the confidence he found after being mauled for six, four and four by Finch in the back half of his first over came from visualising the lines and lengths he had bowled so immaculately at practice in the previous days.

Quick Single: Hurricane de Kock destroys Australia

“A lot was going through my head about how I was going to bring it back and what I needed to do,” Phehlukwayo said in recounting his thoughts as he reclaimed his cap from the umpire and made for his fielding position with figures of 1-0-16-0 to his name.

“But most importantly I was thinking about what I was doing at practice, and what was working before that game.

“Basically I just thought about our preparation and what I was doing right, and what I did right in the Ireland game (where he took 0-22 from four overs in his international debut last Sunday).

“I honestly didn’t know if I was going to get the ball again.

“But I knew I had the backing of Faf (du Plessis, South Africa’s acting ODI captain) and the team so I don’t think that really bothered me or went through my head at that stage.”

It’s a theme that will be explored in-depth at the Australia bowling group’s post-match post-mortem in Johannesburg today as assistant coach David Saker looks for a way to galvanise his troops ahead of another expected onslaught in game two at the seamer-unfriendly Wanderers Stadium tomorrow.

Saker, the former England bowling coach turned Australia supremo, effectively echoed Phehlukwayo’s mantra when quizzed today as to how his cohort which, like South Africa’s squad, contains a raft of bowlers with virtually no international game time behind them can stem the bleeding.

And the likely tremors at the sight of rival opener Quinton de Kock facing up to the new ball tomorrow, fresh from his morale destroying 178 from 113 balls on Friday night.

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“I think they’re up for the challenge, the preparation and the way they’ve bowled at training has been first class, it’s been fantastic,” Saker said of his men who bled runs at more than eight runs per over in the series opener.

“The way they’ve trained is perfect but it’s not always as easy to train like that and then go out and bowl in a game when you’re under that sort of pressure.

“But they’ll reflect and we’ll have a good look at some footage and what they’re doing really well and what they’re doing poorly.

“The good thing is that in two days we’ve got a chance to make it right.

“We don’t have a week to dwell on it, we have to get back on the horse so to speak.

“What we really want them to do is what they’ve done for their states, and come and give us they give them.

“Don’t try to be anything that you’re not.

“We’ve stressed that at training and stressed that at a lot of meetings.”

Saker acknowledged that it’s not always experience that will help a bowling outfit recover and re-calibrate after being subjected to the sort of brutal thuggery inflicted by de Kock and his interim opening partner Rilee Rossouw (63 from 45 balls) on Friday.

As exemplified by Phehlukwayo in his first outing against the world’s number one team, having earned his stripes as part of the Proteas’ successful Under-19 World Cup squad in 2014 and South Africa A teams that travelled to Zimbabwe and Australia earlier this year.

“I think the best bowler in the game was the debutant (Phehlukwayo) really,” Saker said when asked if there was anything the South Africa attack did demonstrably differently to their Australian counterparts.

“He bowled a really good length and held that length better than most.

“He did get hit for a few fours and sixes but he kept going back into the good area and hats off to him, it was a pretty good performance.

“International cricket is brutal, and if you don’t get it right you get eaten up pretty quick and in the conditions over here as a bowler you need to be right on.

“It’s hard enough work when you’re bowling well, let alone if you’re not getting it right.”

Quick Single: 'Felt like every ball was going to the boundary'

With such a small margin for error on a pitch where the bounce was true and offered no movement for bowlers in the dry air at altitude or off the seam on a bare surface, Phehlukwayo admits he had to turn to pure bowling smarts.

His ability to think clearly and know that anything marginally wide of the stumps or hitting a length too full or too short was boundary fodder was attributed to character as much as his still developing skills set.

“To be very honest they (Australia openers Finch and David Warner) were both coming at me and I’ve been in situations like that when batters are more attacking and more aggressive,” Phehlukwayo said.

“So it’s something that I’ve been through and I knew what I had to do.

“The lengths in the beginning probably weren’t good enough and I had to adjust to that, so I think I did fairly well to adjust.

“In situations like that I try to calm myself down a lot.

“But I think generally I’m a very chilled so it comes in my personality, I don’t get really intense too often in situations like that, so it’s a personal thing.”

Something else for the Australian bowlers to keep front of mind when they take the ball against the rampaging home team at The Wanderers on Sunday.