Who will bat at position number three for South Africa in this month’s World Test Championship final against Australia remains in the balance.
Head coach Shukri Conrad has suggested all-rounder Wiaan Mulder, who batted at number three in a recent warm-up fixture against Zimbabwe. Batting coach Ashwell Prince has mentioned the right-handed Tristan Stubbs. The left-handed Tony de Zorzi is an option.
“At the moment, the best way to prepare for us as a squad is to keep all possibilities open. We don’t know what the surface is going to look like when we get there. Should it be a case where Tristan is required to do that job, we want to make sure that he’s at least had some sort of preparation,” said Prince.
“But we don’t know whether he’s going to be required to do that, because we haven’t had a look at the surface. We’ll only be able to tell when we get there. We trust the things that we’ve been doing. It’s not as if you’ve got an exam coming up and all of a sudden, you’ve got to cram all these things in, or cram in some new things that you might not have thought of before.
“We trust what we’ve done in the past. It’s worked for us. We’ve deserved the opportunity to have a crack at it in this final.”
This will be the first time South Africa have contested a World Test Championship final. Australia are the reigning WTC title holders. New Zealand won the inaugural WTC title in 2021.
“It’s a young group and a lot of them have had some fantastic success over the last 18 months to get themselves into this position. I think there’s a sense of everyone wanting the guy next to them to do well and enjoying each other’s success,” added Prince.
“And it’s just been a fantastic journey to be a part of. This is going to be a special opportunity for these guys. Teams of the past have had successes but this is their moment. This is their opportunity to go out and do something special.”
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