South Africa were "taught a lesson in how to play in Caribbean conditions" in the opinion of stand-in T20I captain Rassie van der Dussen, who oversaw a 3-0 sweep at the hands of West Indies.
Van der Dussen, who is not part of South Africa's T20 World Cup squad despite being the second-highest run-scorer in T20 cricket in 2024, stood in for Aiden Markram, as captain and No. 4 batter, with disappointing results. South Africa slumped to a second successive T20I series defeat to West Indies. They have not won a T20I series out of the four they have played under white-ball coach Rob Walter and kept "making the same mistakes," van der Dussen said.
He identified South Africa's batting, especially upfront, as too circumspect. "From a batting front, we can maybe be just a bit braver," he said. "We saw the way that the West Indies play, especially in the powerplay. They really take it on. When the ball's new, it's easier to score. It gets tough towards the back end when the ball gets soft."
Batting first, West Indies put on scores of 64 for 1 and 51 for 1 in the powerplays in the first two games, and chasing 164 in the final game on Sunday, they raced to 83 without loss in that period. South Africa were 46 for 3 and 85 for 2 chasing (the latter their highest powerplay score) and 45 for 2 batting first. The obvious difference is the number of wickets lost among a top order that will need to do duty at the T20 World Cup. Both Reeza Hendricks and Quinton de Kock enjoyed some individual success - Hendricks with his 51-ball 87 in the first game and de Kock with a 17-ball 41 in the second - but their partnership only succeeded once and Ryan Rickelton, the No. 3, was unable to get past 20.
Van der Dussen put some of that down to exhaustion and some to taking longer than they should to assess conditions, but remained harsh in his assessment. "We just couldn't adapt early enough. We had a long week in terms of layovers in Miami and so forth. We saw that in the first match, but you can't keep making the same mistakes."
The middle order didn't fare much better - van der Dussen was the only batter of those carded No. 4 to 7 to get two scores in double-figures - but they will be entirely replaced by Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller and Tristan Stubbs, which should boost South Africa's power-hitting.
The problem? None of them were in the IPL 2024's top-ten run-scorers' list and all were inconsistent to varying degrees at the tournament.
Klaasen started the IPL well but fell away in the middle period, though he did score a half-century in the second qualifier; Markram and Miller only scored one fifty each in 11 innings and nine innings respectively; Stubbs, the best of the lot, scored three fifties and showed off good finishing skills in his time in India.
Van der Dussen was hopeful that their return to the national side will boost the scoring rate. "The guys are very experienced. Many of them have played CPL a few times," he said. "We don't know what conditions we're going to get in the USA but the middle order is made up of very experienced, world-class players."
Anrich Nortje's form remains a concern
Matters appear more worrying on the bowling front, where van der Dussen said West Indies "just out-skilled us" as South Africa "tried a few different things but nothing seemed to work". The biggest concern is Anrich Nortje, who went wicketless in the two matches he played and continued to concede runs heavily - as he did at the IPL - but there may also be some furrowed brows over the fitness of Ottneil Baartman. He bowled his full quota of four overs in the first match but picked up a lower limb strain and did not play the next two games. Baartman offers more variations than anyone else in the South African squad, especially as Lungi Ngidi is only part of the reserves, and his availability for the tournament could be crucial to their chances.
South Africa were without Kagiso Rabada, who was recovering from a soft tissue infection, for this series and Tabraiz Shamsi, who travelled with the squad but did not play a game because of a lower limb injury. Bjorn Fortuin operated as the first-choice spinner and was fairly economical but only picked up one wicket.
It could even be argued that he was outshone by newcomer Nqaba Peter, the legspinner, who is not part of the T20 World Cup squad but is a prospect for the future. Asked to identify some positives, Peter was immediately on van der Dussen's mind. "Youngster Nqaba Peter made his debut and looks like he's been playing for a few years already," he said. "And Bjorn Fortuin bowled well at stages. So there's some glimpses here and there, which we've got to look for. But I think overall we were just short of the mark by quite a long way this week."
South Africa have one more opportunity to fine tune. They will play a warm-up match against a yet-to-be-confirmed opposition in Florida on Wednesday before their tournament begins against Sri Lanka in a week's time.