Proteas coach Shukri Conrad surprised almal wie wil luister by naming his team for Wednesday’s second Test against the West Indies at the Wanderers.
Normally the teams would be finalised at the coin toss for the 10am start, but Conrad bravely announced his starting team in Tuesday’s pre-match press conference.
Making three changes to the team that beat the Windies by 87 runs in the first Test for the second and final match of the series, Conrad has set out to give all the players in his 15-man squad a run.
TEAM ANNOUNCEMENT 🚨
— Proteas Men (@ProteasMenCSA) March 7, 2023
4⃣ changes
➡️Ryan Rickelton, Wiaan Mulder, Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer are brought in
⬅️Marco Jansen, Senuran Muthusamy, Keegan Petersen and Anrich Nortje miss out#SAvWI #BePartOfIt pic.twitter.com/FvyZNlEoir
Therefore, Ryan Rickelton replaces Keegan Petersen in the middle order, Wiaan Mulder takes the allrounder spot of Senuran Muthusamy, with spinners Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer coming in for fast bowlers Anrich Nortje and Marco Jansen.
Of playing Rickelton instead of Petersen, Conrad says: “I still think his [Petersen’s] best position might be five going forward in terms of the way he plays. This Test batting unit is still a work in progress and hopefully by design, and not stumbling on something, we’re gonna get the right mix. I still feel going forward Keegan has a bigger role to play in the middle order rather than the top order. Ricketlon deserves this crack. Everyone knows he’s been churning out good performances.”
Of playing two spinners instead of pacemen, he adds: “This is not just changing the side for the sake of changing the side. We all know Anna [Nortje] has been ruled out, and I also think that Marco [Jansen] deserves a little bit of a break…”
He adds: “History would suggest in the last year that the spinners do come into the game here [at the Wanderers].
“The game doesn’t have to end on day three, Test matches are meant to go to five days. If it goes to days four and five spinners, I do think our spinners can come into play. Hopefully we can get enough runs and on days four and five our players can come into it…”