Jonny Bairstow and Sam Curran of England celebrate as England beat South Africa by five wickets during the first T20 International match at Newlands. Picture: Shaun Roy / BackpagePix
CAPE TOWN - Proteas captain Quinton de Kock has pleaded with the South African public to have patience with his team leading up to next year's ICC T20 World Cup.
The Proteas lost their third consecutive T20 International series on Sunday, going down by four wickets to England at Boland Park for the visitors to take an unassailable 2-0 lead.
Equally, De Kock has also led the team to just three victories in 10 T20 Internationals since he took over the leadership duties from Faf du Plessis.
De Kock, however, believes its virtually a new beginning for his team after lockdown, especially with the Proteas facing a battled-hardened English side that had played throughout the season back home.
"Patience is key at the moment. The team hasn't played together in five to six months. It's all about patience. If we spend more time together and play together, the results will come," De Kock said ahead of Tuesday's final T20I at Newlands.
South Africa's plans have certainly been heavily disrupted in the build-up to this series. Not only were the team forced to contend with the withdrawals of their two seam-bowling all-rounders (Andile Phehlukwayo and Dwaine Pretorius), they also did not play any warm-up matches due to Covid-19 safety precautions.
The rustiness certainly showed during the first two matches with only the batsmen that played in the IPL (De Kock and Faf du Plessis) showing any sort of fluency, while the bowlers struggled to execute their plans consistently.
With the series all done and dusted as a contest, it may have been expected that the Proteas look at some more players in the build-up to the World Cup.
De Kock, though, believes that part of the growth process is to create a winning culture within the environment and the Proteas will therefore resist tinkering with the line-up too much.
"Obviously it is disappointing to lose but I don't think we are going to change much because we still want to win. We want to give guys opportunities but we need to win," he explained.
"It's difficult because we don't have all the options that we would like. It would be nice to have a little extra batsman as an all-rounder to give us more freedom. But at the end of the day we have to carry on and do our best."
Following Sunday's defeat in Paarl, Proteas left-arm spinner Tabraiz Shamsi echoed his captain's sentiments about the team needing more time to get back in the groove.
"At the beginning of the lockdown we weren't really allowed to train so that was quite tough," Shamsi said.
"Our first game we played together as a team was on Friday, we're still getting to know each other. Obviously, we know each other but the more you play together, the more you're going to know each other's ins and outs.
"It's going to take us a little more time to gel again. There's no need to panic, we're getting used tonto each other to get in the rhythm again."
South Africa will still be without Phehlukwayo and David Miller at Newlands with the duo only expected to return for the one-day series.
Likely team for Newlands
South Africa: Quinton de Kock (capt, wk), Janneman Malan, Faf du Plessis, Rassie van der Dussen, Heinrich Klaasen, George Linde, Bjorn Fortuin, Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi, Tabraiz Shamsi.
England: Jason Roy, Jos Buttler (wk), Dawid Malan, Eoin Morgan (capt), Jonny Bairstow, Ben Stokes, Sam Curran, Moeen Ali, Chris Jordan, Adil Rashid, Jofra Archer.
Start: 6pm
TV: SS2 & SABC3