South Africa have debuted 12 cricketers at Test level since new head coach Shukri Conrad was appointed at the start of 2023.
These include batsmen Tristan Stubbs, David Bedingham and Tony de Zorzi – and fast bowlers Nandre Burger and Gerald Coetzee.
“Given we don’t play enough Tests at home, speed-growth is required. Unfortunately we don’t have the luxury of playing 15 Tests a year, so we can’t give players good runs and bring them along slowly,” Conrad told kenborland.com.
“The schedule demands making big calls on players and they have to produce the goods quickly, like Stubbs, who has shown enough already at number three in the batting order.”
The Proteas currently occupy seventh position in the International Cricket Council’s World Test Championship. They will host Sri Lanka and Pakistan for two Tests each during the 2024-25 season.
“We should start wearing the favourites’ tag more at home and it’s going to be four massive home Tests this summer, not just in terms of the World Test Championship but also for the growth of the team,” added Conrad.
South Africa A recently lost two first-class fixtures to Sri Lanka A in Kimberley and Benoni. South Africa A were captained by all-rounder Neil Brand, who captained the Proteas during early 2024’s Test tour of New Zealand.
“We’ve actually gained very little from this A series, except the confirmation of the gap between international and our domestic cricket. These are the guys who have done very well at domestic level, so it’s not a great advert for that. They’ve been out-bowled, out-batted and out-thought by Sri Lanka,” concluded Conrad.
“These SA A fixtures are a lot about who can take the step up and the message is quite simple really – what’s below the Test side is concerning. But it’s not entirely the players’ fault – to get better they have to play more, both in Tests and in more first-class cricket.
“If you’re only playing seven first-class games a season then you’re not going to get better. I don’t want it to be about me fighting the system, but we only played 42 days of domestic cricket this season. We can’t have that and whatever the format, we need to be playing more of it.
“Cricket South Africa obviously have good reasons for the schedule and they also want to know what the best solution is for the domestic game, but at the end of the day we need to find a way to prioritise domestic cricket, even at the expense of the SA A team. If we don’t have quality players feeding into the SA A squad then that structure means nothing.”