Boucher admits Proteas have mental issues playing in Asia

It’s not the first time the Proteas have given their critics reason to jeer their mental toughness on the subcontinent following their 2-0 series loss to Pakistan in Rawalpindi on Monday, but this time coach Mark Boucher has publicly questioned their mental strength as well.

South Africa went from needing 129 runs with seven wickets in hand to a 95-run defeat in the second Test, following a collapse of seven wickets for just 33 runs against the second new ball.

“It’s more mental than anything else,” Boucher said on Monday.

“If there were technical issues then guys would be getting out the same way all the time and you can look at the techniques and make changes, we do continuous technical work and change little things. But there are clearly a lot of scars from previous tours.

“We keep talking about mental application and the big moments when you need to drive home your advantage.

“But instead we seem to find ways to get out, things like run outs, stupid ways to get out at important moments that really cost us.

“The new ball played a massive role today, which can happen, but losing seven for 30 is a major batting collapse. It’s a mental thing, the match awareness is not where it should be. You should know when it’s time to really turn the screw, but that’s when we just seem to relax.”

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While Aiden Markram’s breakthrough series (227 runs at 56.75) in the subcontinent has brought some cheer, Boucher admitted that the failure of the senior batsmen to provide constant solidity was a major disappointment.

Captain Quinton de Kock scored just 46 runs in four innings, Faf du Plessis averaged 13.75 in the series and even opener Dean Elgar could only pass fifty once as he totalled 119 runs in his four knocks.

“If you’re going to win away from home, you need your senior players, who have been in these conditions before, to stand up, they should know what to expect, but unfortunately that did not happen,” Boucher said.

“We needed to get through 15-20 overs with the second new ball today and then it would have been much easier to bat, we needed to look after the second new ball but we did not do that.

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“It was great to see Aiden come through though, he was able to fight his way through, spending time at the crease, and scoring an unbelievable hundred in tough conditions on Day 5. It was a fantastic Test pitch and if you applied yourself mentally then you could score well. And I don’t think you can blame a lack of cricket because of the amount of time the team has had in the nets, they’ve played enough.”

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