RISING TO THE TOP Shukri Conrad has revealed how a tactical shift and leadership changes propelled the Proteas to an unexpected World Test Championship final run. Photo: BackpagePix
Image: BackpagePix
The turnaround in the Proteas Test team in the last couple of years has been nothing short of phenomenal, and that’s thanks in large part to Shukri Conrad taking over as coach.
When Mark Boucher left in 2022 after four years with the side, Malibongwe Maketa took over on an interim basis before Conrad took the reins in 2023 as the coach of the Test team.
Shortly after Conrad took over, Dean Elgar handed over the captaincy to Temba Bavuma.
At the beginning of 2024, there was also a massive spanner thrown in the works for the Test team, as the local SA20 required the top Proteas players to take part in their money-spinning competition.
It meant Conrad had to take an understrength side to New Zealand for their two-match series. The hosts had no problems dispatching SA 2-0 in that series.
It left the Proteas dwindling at the bottom of the World Test Championship log in the current cycle, and their meteoric rise to top the table and book their spot in the final at Lord’s later this year has been nothing short of a fairytale.
"We needed to change direction, reset a little bit. Captaincy changed. I always had a clear understanding of how we want to do things, and I always knew who the players were. I mean, bar some of the young guys, I'd worked with a majority of them, so I kind of knew what they were about,” Conrad told SportsBoom.co.za.
"And I think that helped as a start. When a new coach comes in, it takes a while for the coach to get to know the players and for the players to get to know the coach. Thankfully, there was none of that because we knew each other, and everybody knew what I was about. I knew what they were about, their character, etc.”
After the loss to the Kiwis, South Africa won their next four series in a row against West Indies, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan.
"I think the turning point for me was Bangladesh, where we achieved something that a pro-team side hadn't achieved in 10 years. That gave us a lot of confidence, knowing that we had to come home and play four Test matches and that if we won three or four of them, we'd be in the final," said Conrad.
"The confidence grew amongst the group, particularly in the batting unit. I always felt like once you've got runs, you can play because we've always had a really good bowling unit. We've always had a really good bowling attack.
“Once the runs started coming from different players, there wasn't a reliance on one or two players to get us the big runs. I think the batting unit was settled. The guys knew their roles, they were comfortable in how they were going to do things."