Seeing his senior players stand up and take the fight to their opponents was one of the most pleasing aspects for Proteas white ball coach Rob Walter after SA claimed a first bilateral series win under his stewardship.
The Proteas’ match-winning performances in the first two T20 matches against Pakistan, which they won by 11 runs and seven wickets respectively, were enough to secure the series, as the final encounter, meant to be contested in Johannesburg, was abandoned before the toss.
Though they may have lacked some discipline with the ball, watching his batters sending the ball to all parts of the venues — senior men like David Miller and George Linde in the first match and Reeza Hendricks and Rassie van der Dussen in game two — was satisfying for Walter.
“You want your senior players to stand up when they are surrounded by the younger crew who are still cutting their teeth on the international space,” he said.
“From the bowling line-up, having a young line-up with not many caps under their belt to get the job done in the first game, in particular, and then parts of it in the second game, those are the two aspects I was particularly pleased with,” Walter said in his post-series interview.
The coach believes in the importance of bilateral series in building player options ahead of future ICC tournaments.
“You always start at the end point and work your way back; understand the processes and steps you need to put in place.
“It’s not linear and never works out the way you planned it.
“Things have to be fluid, but we have a strong idea of the parts of our game that we are working on, the way we want to play and the attributes of the players we want to fit into the way we want to play.
“These bilateral [ties] are massively important for that, our younger guys learnt great lessons against India and were able to be better against Pakistan — it’s all part of the process to 2026,” he said.
The men in green and gold are set to do battle against Pakistan in a three-match ODI series between Tuesday and Sunday.
Walter said it would be a fine balancing act in terms of keeping players fresh and injury-free ahead of the Test series, which begins only four days after the 50-over clashes.
“The 50-over squad is quite settled, to be honest, and it is guys who have played a lot of 50-over cricket, it’s not like they are learning how to play the game.
“It’s really about checking back into our blueprint of how we played at the World Cup and picking up from where we left off from that point of view and then managing the three games given the short turnaround to the Test matches,” he said.
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