Former Proteas Assistant coach (performance) of over eleven years, Prasanna Agoram, has identified the planning to have been faulty and as the main reason behind the Proteas early exit from the 2021 T20 World Cup, writes Ongama Gcwabe.
The Proteas have crashed out of the T20 World Cup yet again, but this time around it was not because of a failure to handle big pressure games but it was on net run rate.
Yes, a World Cup campaign that features 4 wins out of 5 matches is generally a good campaign but this time around for the Proteas, it wasn’t good enough to get them through to the semi-finals of the World Cup.
Personally, I was not interested to refer to the Bangladesh game as a reason why we didn’t qualify. For me, the most important thing was the fact that the only team that beat us qualified ahead of us. All this thinking was before I had a chat with Prasanna Agoram at St Georges Park about the World Cup.
Agoram is now the High-Performance manager for Gauteng Cricket (both men and women) and works with the Lions alongside head coach Wandile Gwavu, assistant coach Jimmy Kgamadi and bowling coach Piet Botha. He works with key players like Ryan Rickelton, Lutho Sipamla and Sisanda Magala to name a few.
I asked Agoram how he felt about the Proteas 2021 T20 World Cup journey, and he replied:
“I want to tell you only one thing – the numbers, the strategies and the calculators play a massive role in a team environment and after I left no one replaced me,” Agoram told Cricket Fanatics Magazine in an exclusive interview.
“That is where the difference was, when you bowl out a team like Bangladesh for 84, had I been part of the team, the first thing I would’ve told them is that we needed to chase that score in seven overs.”
What he meant is that it was rather unsafe and unfavourable for us to go to the World Cup without an experienced team video analyst that could give the team insight on what was expected of them from a numbers point of view.
Clearly, that was the missing piece of the puzzle in this Proteas coaching team because it was known right after the thriller game against Sri Lanka that South Africa had to beat Bangladesh by some margin because of the possibility of a loss or a narrow victory against the strongest team in the tournament in England.
“We were knocked out of the World Cup because of a huge miscalculation, and you cannot hide that fact. I believe in something- there should be a space for a ‘laptop’ in a men’s senior side particularly with how the game has evolved,” said Agoram.
In the interview, I was wondering as to how it was possible for us to go to the UAE without ‘P-Dog’ as he was with the side for such a long time and because of the relationship he has with the current players in the side. Who did we think was going to bring what Prasanna brings to the Proteas team?
For the past three days, I’ve had the opportunity to watch him analyse the Warriors vs Lions 4-Day Series encounter in Gqeberha and my word the man is good at his job!
With only one operating camera, the Lions players would come to the media centre where Agoram was stationed for this game and look for guidance and tactics they needed to get right to win the match.
What I was impressed with was the depth to which his conversations with players would go, he was not only offering technical and tactical advice, but he was going as far as encouraging the players not to think small but to think big and to continue to dream of representing the Proteas one day.
I asked him:
Do you think something could’ve been done or should’ve been done to get you on that plane to Abu Dhabi with the Proteas?
“Probably that is a decision that the management should’ve taken, probably. Now we’ve seen the number of players who come to me for video analysis in a domestic game where there’s only one camera to work with. Now you can imagine how much more it is needed for an international game,” he replied.
“We have not lost out on skill, we have not lost out on talent, we have not lost out on wins, we have lost out on planning. You will agree with me if you look at the Proteas World Cup campaign.
“India chased 85 against Scotland in six overs, Australia chased 73 against Bangladesh in 6 overs and we take 13.4 overs to chase 84. Can you see the difference in the thinking?”
It was at this point that I got to understand the reason why many people kept on referring back to the Bangladesh game as the game we let the World Cup slip from our hands. Agoram continued to give insight on what should have been done leading up to that game.
“The information that should’ve been communicated to players was to say – ‘Look, today is the last day of the tournament, you get it done in 42 balls or else let’s go back home tomorrow because there’s no point in playing against England.’
“In spite of scoring 189 against that bowling attack with a young side, when you see the table, we had to restrict them to 131, now tell me is that realistically possible? The whole country knows where we lost the World Cup.”
PHOTO: EPA/DAVID GRAY
