It may not immediately look like it but the situation in South African cricket is steadily improving, so much so that captain Faf du Plessis is upbeat ahead of the four-Test series against England that starts on Boxing Day, ESPN reports.
"Where we are as cricketers in South Africa is the most optimistic we have been in a while," du Plessis said. "There were a lot of challenges the last six months. We hadn't played our best cricket as a team but there had been a lot of stuff happening off the field.
"For me, that's the most promising thing where we are right now. We are not as prepared as we would have liked to be as a Test team but I think for now, what's more important is the things that have changed in the last two weeks. Cricketers in SA and the public have got a lot of optimism about the team. It was really important that we focused on getting the right people in the right places and I feel that has happened. I feel we have got a very good coaching and management staff right now."
"In the Test team, when it comes to not having the experience that you need in the players - if you don't have that - you need to substitute it with experienced people in management and I feel we have done that very well," du Plessis said.
"When we went to India, I felt it was very tough on Enoch to go on that tour and be judged in India.
Even if you are the best coach, you will struggle to go to India and do well so that was a really tough gig on him."
"The last two days have been exceptional in terms of hearing the conversations that's taking place between us, talking in a batting group with Boucher and Kallis. It's unbelievable conversations that haven't happened for a while and the reason why it hasn't happened is because we did have experience in our team, especially in the India series. Post the India tour we needed experience.
"The last two days have been hugely positive for me to see that, even though we are not getting the time in the middle, we are getting very specific practice. Jacques Kallis is talking to batters about how they are batting, what they're looking for, what is a bowler trying to do, how they are putting together their first 20 balls - those things are absolute gold for young players to grow and even for myself. It's been unbelievable just talking to people like that. Their cricket brains are exceptional. You just feed off it the whole time."
"In an ideal world, we would have definitely liked to play a four-day game," he said. "There is no substitute for four-day cricket, especially before a Test series and especially after a T20 campaign. We would have liked our bowlers to be Test match ready and that means workloads.
"All best Test bowling units bowl at their best when they have bowled a lot of overs. Look at all the great bowlers. Dale [Steyn] and Morne [Morkel] were no different. All of them needed to bowl a lot of overs and then they were at their best. We are not in a position where we can have that. But yesterday was a massive workload day for the bowlers. That's the most we have ever bowled at practice as a Test team. We can only do what we can and I thought we did it well yesterday."
