They looked out of their depth – and at some stages looked stupid – as they could only guess which direction the ball was turning.
It was embarrassing.
Leg-break Rashid Khan and off-break Allah Ghazanfar were the creators of the South African batting misery as they spun Afghanistan to a series victory in the first bilateral series between the two nations.
Batting coach JP Duminy highlighted that the footage that was available to the team did not have close-up zooms for them to help the batters better prepare for the relatively unknown spinner in Ghazanfar.
“Coming into the first game, not having seen much of him... Even in the footage (we had), there weren’t close-up zooms to decipher which way the ball was going,” Duminy told the media yesterday.
“Even if you think about how we played him (Ghazanfar) better in the second game, it was necessarily about the footage that we saw. I think it was more around the conversation about how are we going to play this guy,” he added.
Given that this Proteas squad is filled with inexperienced players who performed well enough in domestic cricket to earn a call-up, it is easy to look back on domestic cricket and pass a verdict that the system is not necessarily up to standard.
How can these players dominate domestically and perform so dismally against Afghanistan? What does this say about domestic cricket?
Moreover, it has been made clear by coach Rob Walter that this tour, as well as the two recent trips to the Caribbean, was meant to expose new players and widen the talent pool.
While the players have gained experience, the team has lost every single game.
Duminy says this idea of blooding youngsters doesn’t exclude the idea of winning games for South Africa.
“It’s not a fair reflection in terms of where domestic cricket is,” said Duminy.
“You think about this tour, yes, we find ourselves in a bit of a developmental growth phase, but that doesn’t exclude the idea that we’re trying to win games for South Africa,” he added.
Despite the embarrassing series loss, it is hard to look past the brilliant opening partnership between Temba Bavuma and Tony de Zorzi in the second ODI.
The pair played confidently after having been disciplined early on in the innings.
Going forward into the third and final match of the series, Duminy says the batters need to be more confident and have one-on-one conversations to figure out a plan for the spinners.
“There was certainly a more confident start. If you think back to the first game, I think (we were on) 36/7 in the powerplay, so there were some strides made in this powerplay (54/0 in the 2nd ODI).
“The thing that we often reflect upon is: What was our mindset? Were we confident in the options that we took? What was the execution?
“The answer lies within one-on-one connections and understanding where I come up short and what I need to do to be better.
“That’s essentially where we’re going to be sitting over the next 24 hours. If we can have clarity in that, we give ourselves the best opportunity,” he concluded.
The third and final match of the series will get underway today at 2pm SAST in Sharjah.