Rabada alert

Proteas assistant coach Enoch Nkwe has never been one to butter up his players and he said, on the eve of the third and decisive T20
international against Australia at Newlands, that Kagiso Rabada is still bowling at only 70% of his full capability.

Rabada was outstanding in the narrow, series-levelling win over Australia at St George’s Park, taking 1/27 in his four overs and conceding just 10 runs in the 17th and penultimate overs.

But Nkwe, who worked extensively with the 24-year-old paceman when he was coaching at the Lions, said he expected more to come from the Proteas spearhead in the final T20 in Cape Town on Wednesday evening.

“Having spent a lot of time with KG, there’s still a lot more to come from him and he feels so too. He bowled one of the best spells in
the IPL last year and that’s where he wants to be in term of performance. He wants to win more games for South Africa, he wants to execute his skills even better at the end. And not just with the ball but with the bat too.

“He’s probably still only at 60-70% of his capabilities right now, but knowing him as I do, it sometimes takes a while for him to get going. But his performance in Port Elizabeth would have helped him massively, in fact all the bowlers responded beautifully under pressure. That was a massive win for us, the team now has much more confidence going into what we are taking as a knockout final,”he said.
The St George’s Park thriller came after South Africa were obliterated by a record 107 runs in the first T20 at the Wanderers.

But Nkwe said that embarrassing defeat had not softened the Proteas’ resolve.

“We were honest after Joburg, we had a deep chat about where we are at as a squad. It was such a poor performance and we accept that we let ourselves and the country down. But there’s not much time to dwell on negatives in international cricket and we still had the confidence to go out and execute our skills, it was just a matter of a mindset change that we needed.

“We’ve just told the players to ‘go out and play, be the best you can’ and the senior group have really come together well. Port
Elizabeth was a coastal pitch and Newlands might be similar, so that helps with the confidence as well. We’ve seen how good we are when the skills are executed 100%, when the players commit to them. We want to master the fundamentals and get the right formula that works for us,”

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