Kagiso Rabada asks South Africa’s batters for patience

• Kagiso Rabada has asked for patience and understanding from South Africa’s batsmen.
• Rabada is the leading wicket-taker in Test cricket with 45 wickets so far this year.
• Batsmen experienced their lowest Test year ever in 2022.

Kagiso Rabada, the mainstay of South Africa’s pace attack, has asked for “patience and understanding” from the team in light of the batsmen’s struggles and acknowledged that the team is finding it “frustrating” to accept their play.

As a team, South African batsmen experienced their lowest Test year ever in 2022, with eight separate dismissals for under 200 runs. Rabada, with 45 Test wickets through eight matches this year, is the leading wicket-taker, making their poor record look even worse in comparison. However, Rabada believes it is only a matter of time before South Africa’s batters catch up, despite the fact that the gap between the two disciplines appears to be widening as they routinely find standout speedsters like the latest recruit Marco Jansen, while no combination of batting has clicked completely yet.

“The batting line-up that we have is quite inexperienced,” Rabada said. “In fact, the team that we have is relatively inexperienced if you look at other cricketing nations. Dean Elgar is our most experienced player followed by myself and Temba (Bavuma). I’ve played 50-odd Test matches and everyone else hasn’t played much. It can get frustrating as well and when I say frustrating I don’t mean to single out the batters, it’s frustrating as a team and you almost have to understand that sometimes this is what happens in a rebuilding phase.”

Elgar has 80 caps, Rabada 56, and Bavuma 52. South Africa’s top six has played 173 Tests between Sarel Erwee, Rassie van der Dussen, Khaya Zondo, and Kyle Verreynne. The Brisbane XI has played 315 Tests. David Warner has 99 Test caps, while Nathan Lyon has played 113. Brisbane’s top six has 313 caps, two fewer than South Africa’s complete XI, so Rabada is right about the disparity in experience.

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