South Africa want to entertain, but for now they need to win

Cricket is changing, they say, so much so that South Africa's Test coach Shukri Conrad - a campaigner for the "proud traditions and heritage" of the long format - had this to say about the state of the game today:

"We are in the entertainment business, and we have to make sure we make the product enjoyable not only for fans but for players alike."

Words like "business" and "product" are part of professional sport, but had not really been seriously mentioned in conversations about Test cricket before Brendon McCullum and Ben Stokes created a brand that was intended to put bums on seats. Their surge to 11 wins in their first 13 Tests together (which now sits at 13 in 18) puts the onus on others to follow suit and Conrad's comment indicates South Africa are contemplating jumping aboard the aggressive run-scoring train. But can they and can they do it right now? Is it realistic for a team with their resources and schedule? And is that what their players want? Let's investigate.

England have played more Tests than anyone else in the last 10 years and will play more than anyone else in the next FTP cycle, which gives them plenty of room to experiment with style of play and to gain points on the World Test Championship (WTC) table. If they slip up now and then, it may not matter as much as it would to a team like South Africa, who enter this cycle in a squeeze.

Between 2023 and 2026, they will only play two-Test series, both as a consequence of cost-cutting (hosting Test matches is loss-making unless it is against the Big Three, and South Africa do not play England or Australia at all) and to accommodate for the SA20, and so every match will matter. Winning, or at least not losing, has to matter more than the style of play, and South Africa have shown they are capable of thinking that way. Remember the Test against India 10 years ago - almost to the day - where South Africa settled for a draw, eight runs away from pulling off the highest successful chase in the format? They did that because they knew the importance of going into the second Test in a two-match series without having conceded the first. Was it what people wanted to see? Perhaps not, but in the end South Africa won the series and India have yet to beat them in a series at home.

Conrad recognises the importance of South Africa holding on to that record this summer. "If it was ever possible to make this series bigger, that makes it bigger: India have never won here. We are certainly going to hold on to that proud record, and make sure that it [loss] doesn't happen," he said. "And India is the biggest series we are going to play this year. It has been dubbed the final frontier back in India and we are going to be doing our damnedest to make sure they don't conquer this final frontier."

There is also more to the desperation to deny India than just pride because it's a crucial cog in the bigger wheel. On paper, India are South Africa's toughest opposition in this WTC cycle. After this series, South Africa travel to New Zealand - and New Zealand have never beaten them in a series home or away - with a makeshift side, as the first-choice players are unavailable because of the SA20. With no option to reschedule the matches, Conrad has already prepared a squad, has used them over the last few months in an A series against West Indies and is confident they can compete. "I am going to back myself to come back with something from New Zealand," he said.

Even if he is only saying that because he has to, and South Africa lose 2-0 there, their next assignments against West Indies and Bangladesh, both away, and Sri Lanka and Pakistan at home, are ones you would expect them to win. Though upsets happen (Sri Lanka beat South Africa in 2018 but were badly beaten in 2020-21), if South Africa play to their reputation and get positive results in those four rubbers, then, depending on the outcome of the India series, it's possible South Africa could be contenders for the WTC final. And that's why Conrad has to take the long view for the next year, with the understanding that almost everything in this cycle could hinge on what happens over the next two weeks.

"There's nothing bigger than the present. And India is present. That makes that the biggest Test series," he said. "When we leave for New Zealand, then that becomes the biggest and so on. We try to stay in the present but there's also a little bit of forward planning. I cannot focus only on the now. I've got to keep on eye on how things are going to play out - New Zealand, West Indies, Bangladesh and then the home series. But as it stands right now, it's all about India."

That means South Africa will make every effort to put the energy of labelling themselves as a particular kind of Test team on the back burner while concentrating on results. "I am still very much convinced that Test cricket is a massive thing for all our players but have we got a certain brand? I don't have a name for it but I am always going to go for the character over the cover driver."

There's a message in that. The South African way, if you will, is not about the aesthetic but the outcome, not about the pretty but the performance and about far more walk than talk. And that's not just the cricketers. The national rugby team won a record fourth World Cup earlier this year by scrapping their way to one-point wins in all three knockout matches. It was messily magnificent and made the point that sometimes success is nothing more than a long, hard slog. That's the opposite of what the business of entertainment is but given the fixtures Conrad has to work with, it may be what he demands from his players even though it will not take away from the wider problem that red-ball cricket faces in this country.

Lower down the supply chain, in domestic cricket, the South African Cricketers' Association's (SACA) 2023 player review revealed that there is a desire for "more cricket to be played to reduce the gap in standard between domestic and international cricket." They asked for a minimum of 10 games a season, an increase of at least three from the seven they play now, and for the season to start with four-day games before progressing to T20 to "help prevent injuries." What they might have meant was that four-day cricket needs to be better prioritised so that it can produce Test-ready cricketers.

Currently, the red-ball competition has to take place on the margins of peak summer, because the SA20 has claimed the main window, between early January and mid-February. Tests will be played in December and players get a window to prepare in October and November. In places like the Western Cape, summer is only beginning (remember the 47 all out Test in 2011? That took place in November) and pitches are not at their peak. It's hardly surprising then that coaches and ex-players "unanimously" told the SACA reviewers that they believed domestic standards in the last 10 to 15 years had dropped. It also means that selection criteria could change and instead of the best-performing domestic red-ball players automatically earning call-ups to the Test squad, the best ODI players could. "The formats are so close together now that you can almost use lateral form lines from T20s into ODIs and from ODIs into Test cricket," Conrad said.

It's an imperfect workaround which will only cause the stature of the domestic game to dwindle more but at a time when the only form of cricket in this country that is financially viable is the SA20, what else can anyone do? At least, the change is coming while the Test side is being coached by someone who has seen a massive amount of it. Conrad played cricket when South African sport, and society, was racially segregated, he coached before, during and after the domestic overhaul that went from provinces to a six-team franchise structure and then back to the provinces and he has learnt to take things, even things like being tasked with being a great entertainer, in his stride because that is what South Africans do. "We can bemoan every fact but that is not typically South African," he said. "Typically South African is that we have to get up and find a way and make a plan and that's what we'll do."