Proteas spinners out to up their game

DURBAN: The Proteas have acknowledged the superb performance of West Indian spinner Sunil Narine – whose 6/27 was a career-best – and their spinners will be looking to up their game for their second Tri-Series match against Australia in Guyana tomorrow night (start 7pm, SA time).

The conditions at the Guyana National Stadium have made spin the talking point after the opening match on Friday, which saw spinners collect 12 of the 16 wickets to fall.

Proteas spinner Aaron Phangiso picked up a career-best 3/40 against the home side but was unable to stem the onslaught of Kieron Pollard in South Africa’s four-wicket loss. Pollard, the only man to make batting look easy in tough conditions, finished unbeaten on a run-a-ball 67, slamming three of his sixes off Phangiso.

“I’m quite pleased with my performance but there is still a lot of improvement to be done,” Phangiso said. “ We can maybe try a different approach when a player like Pollard is on the attack, perhaps change up the lengths a little bit. It’s something that we will need to work on with (spin bowling coach) Claude Henderson.”

Phangiso admits it was a challenge defending a below-par score, even with the helpful conditions, but gave credit to man-of-the-match Narine, a spin mastermind he hopes to pick up valuable tips from during the series. Both Phangiso and Narine recently faced the challenge of remodelling their actions after they were deemed illegitimate, but both have made successful comebacks to international cricket.

“It was tough defending a low total,” Phangiso admitted. “Even with the conditions, we were expected to do a job and I thought we bowled quite well. We were probably 20 runs short, it was one of those surfaces that was always going to be tough for batsmen coming in. You have to give credit to Narine, he bowled really well.”

“He is a great bowler,” he said of Narine. “He has had consistent performances in the IPL and for the West Indies over the years so you can always learn from a player like that. The way he bowled on Friday showed the skill he has, you could see by the lengths and the strategy that he had in place.”

Phangiso and Imraan Tahir had nothing to do with SA’s defeat, however, with the batsmen showing an old weakness against spin, while too many extras were conceded (23 against five for the West Indies), another familiar failing.

Clearly a brisk start against the new ball will be essential to a winning total. But it should be noted that the Proteas fulfilled that requirement with a half-century opening partnership between Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock at a respectable rate of five to the over. It was what happened after that partnership was broken, that decided the match.

While the Proteas struggled with their run-rate after their positive start, what lost them the contest was the fact that they lost their last seven wicket for just 28 runs. - Cape Times