Proteas coach Shukri Conrad hoping young batters 'learnt lessons' from Virat and Rohit

The last time the Proteas faced India in an ODI prior to the recently-completed three-match series, they boasted a middle-order consisting of Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen and David Miller.

Fast forward two years to the series decider in Vizag, and it was only Markram that remains - and that is only due to Tony de Zorzi’s hamstring injury. That is a collective loss of 309 ODI’s worth of experience. The replacements Matthew Breetzke (12) and Dewald Brevis (9) have a sum of 21 caps. 

Klaasen has since retired from all forms of international cricket and both Van der Dussen and Miller will be 38 by the time the home World Cup arrives in 2027.

It would be a fair judgement to assume that neither will be there. This leaves coach Shukri Conrad with precious little time to get the likes of Breetzke, Brevis and De Zorzi (22 caps), when he returns from injury, up to speed. 

It is for this reason, that despite “missing out on doing something really special”, Conrad feels his inexperienced batting line-up would have learnt invaluable lessons over the course of the last three matches. 

“I'd like to think that we'll take that learnings with us and then grow from there, especially our younger batters,” Conrad said after the 2-1 defeat.

“Like I say, part of this is building towards 2027, the World Cup in South Africa. And I'd like to think that a few things are starting to fall into place for that. 

“A lot of experience is built, and you gain so much more experience when you're up against the best. We were certainly up against the best over the last couple of weeks.”

Although it was India’s young gun, Yashasvi Jaiswal, that delivered the killer blow with his maiden ODI century to lead the home to a comprehensive nine-wicket victory in the series decider, the 23-year-old was batting between two of world’s premier white-ball batters in Rohit Sharma and Virat Kohli. 

The latter was in imperious form during the three-match series with Kohli striking back-to-back centuries and an undefeated 65 in Vizag to guide Jaiswal to his milestone. Equally, Sharma struck two classy half-centuries in the series. 

Conrad hoped his young batters were paying close attention to the masterclasses delivered out in the middle. 

“I thought we, again, didn't get off to the best of starts, lost a wicket in the first over. But lost wickets at the most inopportune times. Whenever we looked like we were getting something together, we'd lose an in-batter,” he said.

“Towards the back end, when Dewaldt and Marco (Jansen) get out in the same over to Kuldeep, you end up 40-50 runs shy of where you potentially could have been. Therein lies the learnings for us, for our young batters to see what the world's best does, ie Virat and Rohit, how they go about the business.

“They're a world-class side with world-class players. When Rohit's in the type of form, and Virat especially in the type of form that he's in, you cannot afford to be off your game.”