Proteas look to Kwena Maphaka to turn aggression into wickets against Zimbabwe

South Africa unloaded a barrage of inexperienced players at Zimbabwe in the first Test in Bulawayo this past week, and while most had matches to remember, young left-arm quick Kwena Maphaka did not.

Corbin Bosch, in his second Test, scored a hundred and picked up a five-wicket haul. The debutant trio of Lhuan-dre Pretorius, who scored a big century, Dewald Brevis, who struck a half-century and picked up his maiden Test wicket, and Codi Yusuf — who cumulatively collected six wickets in total — all had outstanding maiden showings.

Only Maphaka, of the inexperienced bunch, had a match in which he didn’t tick off a milestone.

Maphaka bowled 22 overs across both innings, conceded 80 runs and picked up no wickets.

The young left-arm quick was aggressive, knocking a few Zimbabwe batters on the head with the red cherry, including forcing opener Brian Bennett to be substituted after a rising bouncer struck him on the helmet.

In that regard, he did the job he was asked to do, but the wickets column didn’t reward his efforts, which were relentless but oftentimes wayward.

“Sometimes someone doesn’t get wickets, it doesn't mean he didn’t contribute,” Proteas bowling coach Piet Botha said. “One of the messages was that he needs to be aggressive. I thought he was really aggressive. He did a good role in that respect.”

Lack of red-ball experience

The 19-year-old has only played five first-class matches, two of which have come in the form of Test matches for his country. Conversely, Maphaka has already played 50 professional white-ball matches — either 50- or 20-over matches.

His lack of red-ball experience was evident in his ploy to take wickets, especially in the second innings: bouncers, yorkers and slower balls. 

While those are often supremely effective in limited-overs cricket, where batters are looking to score quickly, it’s not as potent in Test cricket as batters are happy to just see those deliveries out.

The rapid speed with which Maphaka is capable of delivering the ball, while intimidating for batters, can also be to his detriment when the bowling mechanics aren’t aligned perfectly.

His economy rate in the first innings was 4.33, more than any other South African bowler.

“Because he’s got the pace and you’re playing on good wickets generally in Test cricket, if you get it slightly wrong, the batters will be on top of you,” Botha said.

“We’ve spoken about it. We’ve worked out some training methods for him. It’s basically just getting your body conditioned to bowling that disciplined line and length for long periods.

“You need to play a lot of cricket to get to that, and also from a practise point of view, we need to pay attention to small things like that when we practise.

“That’s also been discussed with him and that’s part of our progress plan for Kwena.”

Gaining experience

South Africa come up against Zimbabwe in the second Test that starts on Sunday, and Maphaka is set to feature again after senior bowler Lungi Ngidi — who was set to travel to Bulawayo for the second match — was released from the squad and remained in South Africa.

According to Botha, Maphaka needs to gain red-ball experience to improve. South Africa’s next Test match is only in November, against India, and the domestic season also only starts in the summer. There are 15 international white-ball matches scheduled before then. When Maphaka will hone his red-ball skills with the influx of limited-overs matches is uncertain.

Apart from Ngidi, there is also the matter of Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen returning to the side, which will make regular game time for the youngster difficult to find.

“As a coach, you can do a lot in terms of talking to a person, working with him technically — but he needs to pick up experience,” Botha said.

“That’s the most important for all of us who’ve played cricket. You learn as you play. For him, it’s just about getting a lot more four-day cricket and five-day cricket under the belt, and then he’ll improve.

“As he’s in the environment, as he goes through his experiences, he’ll also work things out for himself.

“We can talk through things… but it’s all about that exposure and making sure that he learns as he goes and he picks up his confidence as he goes.” DM

The second Test between South Africa and Zimbabwe gets under way from Sunday at 10am.