The big Proteas batting breakthrough?

South Africa's top order delivered at last! But while optimism must prevail, big knocks in Chattogram don’t guarantee Proteas greatness...

The South African cricket community will inevitably be raising glasses to the Proteas’ batsmen after their team wrapped up an innings defeat today to drub Bangladesh 2-0 away from home.

No disrespect to a bowling attack led by Kagiso Rabada, who once again sits at the top of the ICC Test rankings after returning to his best rhythm. A mix of pace and spin bowled Bangladesh out cheaply three times out of four. But bowling has rarely been an issue for South African Test sides. The real news this October was the top order finally giving them something to bowl at, courtesy of a torrent of runs in the second test.

The remaining few South Africans who care about the Proteas – rugby success has its downsides – have waited a long time to believe in their batting specialists again. There have been several lean years since the likes of Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers departed in a relatively short space of time.

All those retirements meant a new generation of batters landed at about the same time as South Africa’s fixture list began to shrink. With matches coming so rarely, learning on the job would inevitably take more months and years than in the past. A real test of patience for all concerned.

It was also an equally arduous test of faith. When you pick batsmen and they don’t smash centuries right away, you’re giving them a chance to settle in at the top level, believing in their potential as you give them that time and space. South Africans know the value of that better than most: a certain Jacques Kallis took six matches to make his first 50 and seven to make his famous first hundred. The latter helped South Africa save a Test in Melbourne, against an attack featuring Shane Warne and Glenn McGrath.

But you never know – even if it’s a Kallis – whether they’re really good enough. Not until they deliver. Questions will have been asked about many of this top order. Did they just need time? Or were they never going to make the Test grade?

Chattogram saw both patience and faith rewarded at last. Tony de Zorzi, needed just one more Test than Kallis to deliver a hundred – and a big one at that with 177. Tristan Stubbs, playing in his fifth, joined him as a centurion with 106. As a bonus – although he’s not a top-order batsman – Wiaan Mulder weighed in with a memorable debut ton of his own. Three breakthroughs in one innings. It must feel like a vindication monsoon for both players and coach Shukri Conrad.

Photo source: @ProteasMenCSA on X.

But does that suddenly mean de Zorzi (above left) and Stubbs (above right) are indeed good enough? That the faith was vindicated? That they will go on to greatness?

Not necessarily. What’s certain is that they will gain invaluable confidence and are now in the best possible position to build great batting careers. But this was neither Australia nor the MCG. And South Africa’s Test batting history in Bangladesh offers a little cause for keeping the optimism cautious.

Following two-Test series in 2003, 2008 and 2015, this was the Proteas’ fourth visit to the delta nation. And the first thing to note is that South Africa has an excellent record in Bangladesh despite its perennial modest expectations against subcontinental spin. It has now won six of those eight away Tests – and that could well have been eight had any chances of results not been dashed by washouts in that 2015 visit.

Looking a little closer, there’s also a history of career-defining scores by individual batsmen. Specifically, if you can believe the coincidence, in innings victories in Chattogram.

The innings win in the first Test in 2003, for example was built on massive undefeated contributions by Jaques Rudolph (222*) and Boeta Dippenaar, who spookily notched up exactly the same score as de Zorzi.

It wasn’t just Rudolph’s debut century. It was his debut, full stop. And somewhat cruelly, it was also to be his highest Test score in a 48-match career.

Dippenaar’s ton came well into his 38-Test career and was the second of his three. But it was his only big one: his others were 100 and 110, both earned on home soil.

Jumping to the Chattogram fixture in 2008, then as now the second Test of the series, Neil McKenzie made 226 in a mammoth opening partnership of 415 with Graeme Smith.

McKenzie already had hundreds and plenty of experience by that point in his 58-game career in the Test side, but Chattogram was also his best knock. Along with the 94 and 155* he made in the Chennai Test against India that followed, the period represented the high point of his career in terms of numbers.

Setting the exceptional Smith aside, there’s a bit of a pattern among South Africa’s other three centurions in Bangladesh. Rudolph, Dippenaar and McKenzie all made their top Test scores in Chattogram - albeit at varying stages of their careers. And what else do they have in common? That’s right: none of the three get mentioned in the same breath as Smith/Kallis/Amla/de Villiers.

While allowing for the fact that all three of them faced the new ball at times, they all ended up with averages in the thirties – and Dippenaar only just so. All good batsmen who did wholesome jobs for their country, but not quite legends either.

Frankly, though, even a batsman matching that description is something South Africa should snatch and nurture after the past few years. And if one of the new centurions turns out to be a Graeme Smith in the long term, it will be a welcome bonus.

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