Evolved Boucher embraces job as Proteas’ coach

With little practice time, the training sessions have been smart, intense and gruelling.

When Mark Boucher was named the new South African cricket coach last week, those who remembered him as an abrasive ex-Proteas wicketkeeper feared the national team would undergo a makeover in the unpleasant image of his past.

But, listening to him talk about his approach after three years as the Titans’ coach, the man who came across as an Aussie trapped in a Saffer’s body sounded worlds apart from the player we knew.

“I think I’ve learnt a lot of lessons along the way,” said Boucher, who admitted he expected to be at St Francis Bay at this time of year instead of in camp with the Proteas preparing them for the Boxing Day test in Centurion.

“I learnt that my way is not always the right way, that’s for sure. There were times in my career when I used to go out there and be aggressive and try to impose myself on team-mates. This is what I’ve learnt about diversity: sometimes you won’t get the best out of players if you try to get them to be like you.

“My biggest lesson has been to let people be who they are. I certainly played my best when I was natural, but my natural wasn’t the same as AB de Villiers’ or Jacques Kallis’ natural.”

As much as some see Boucher as having landed with his bum in the butter, the 43-year-old has been handed something of a hospital pass, being given the job 11 days before the first of four test matches against one-day international champions England, with the backdrop of a Cricket SA administration that has been all but gutted.

Going into the first test at SuperSport Park, the Proteas are very much in crisis-management mode, something at which Boucher, his assistant Enoch Nkwe, batting consultant Kallis, bowling consultant Charl Langeveldt and captain Faf du Plessis are adept.

The first problem they faced was how little time they had to prepare. The squad was named on Monday and they went into camp only on Wednesday because the Mzansi Super League T20 tournament finished this week.

Du Plessis, who said things felt much more “optimistic” for the team with the new changes, explained the rationale of going into camp instead of playing four-day cricket.

“There’s no substitute for four-day cricket, especially before a test series and especially after a T20 campaign.

“But the timing of it was very challenging. If we’d played a four-day game we’d have started on the 19th, finished on the 22nd and got together as a team on the 23rd. We would had a practice and a half before the test. So we felt we needed to connect with the new coaching staff and share information with them.”

Despite the lack of time, the motto for the camp seems to centre on what Kallis, South Africa’s greatest all-rounder, told the team that’s low on self-esteem about confidence. He likened confidence to taking an exam: you can only do it if. To that end, Boucher has made sure that the team has “trained smart and at the right intensity”.

By all accounts the sessions have been gruelling, with the coaches nursing sore shoulders from too many throw-downs and the bowlers putting in the most work they have ever had, ahead of the test on Thursday.

With batting probably the one area in which the Proteas have regressed the most, Kallis sought to play down what he would be bringing as the batting consultant: “I’m not a big one for changing too many things – Dean Elgar won’t come out batting right-handed.

“I’m trying to give the guys options and ideas and make them realise you can’t bat the same way every time you walk out there – you have to be adaptable.”

One of those batsmen is T20 and ODI international Rassie van der Dussen, who will probably find himself making his test debut at number five on Thursday, after Temba Bavuma was ruled out because of a hip injury.

Van der Dussen told the media on the day he was named in the squad that he had received a Facebook message from about 10 years ago, reminding him of the time he helped in a Proteas’ dressing room, occupied by Graeme Smith, Boucher and Kallis, and even fielding for three overs.

The tourists have their fair share of issues, with Joe Root’s captaincy under scrutiny, and international fast-bowler Jofra Archer finding the going tougher than he did in their whistle-stop tour of New Zealand.

Illness also compromised preparations this week.

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