Walter looks to reap player pool-expansion rewards

WITH Enoch Nkwe as Director of Cricket, the Proteas limited-overs coach has been given freedom, which many head coaches can only dream of.

With the freedom, Walter has been able to select his own squads including the 2024 ICC Men’s T20 World Cup squad, one which had only one Black African player.

Most recently, the 49-year-old has been given room to select fringe players, and to be frank, he has gone outside the fringes of the main national team players.

As a result, in the past few months, the Proteas teams have looked almost unrecognisable as four players made their debuts while some with less than a handful of international matches were called back into the team.

Of course, Walter and Cricket South Africa used the UAE tour, which was not originally in the Future Tour Programme, as an opportunity to rest the main players, a move that the country will likely benefit from this summer.

In their absence, South Africa have lost an ODI series to Afghanistan, drew a T20I series against Ireland and failed to whitewash Ireland in a three-match ODI series.

South Africa found themselves brutally exposed in foreign conditions as they failed to adapt to spin-friendly conditions in Sharjah or batting under lights in Dubai.

Therefore, Walter expressed that he wants more from this group of players despite their lack of experience.

“Of course, it’s great to win a series, it’s never a bad thing but I’m still expecting more from this group, expecting more from us as a Proteas team,” he said.

“We want to win games like this where we’re under pressure, where the conditions are tough and not only when the conditions are in our favour,” he added.

However, Walter also expressed that he wishes for more windows that will allow him to award fringe players with international opportunities in order to expand the base of the team.

The 49-year-old emphasised that as coaches they need to focus more on player progress than match results despite their displeasure with losses as a national side.

“Everyone likes to win, we’re all competitive and it’s ultimately why we play the game. But from the coaching space, we try not to get too emotionally attached to the result,” he said.

“It’s really about what progress you see in the players. Focusing on making sure that we acknowledge those things, what we’ve got right, what are the learnings we still need to get and the areas that we need to improve.

“We keep chipping away at our peripheral players. Having these opportunities is exactly what we are aiming for. We need more of them and we want to keep giving certain groups of players some opportunities to grow their experience and understand what the game looks like in different conditions.

“(During the third ODI against Ireland in Dubai on Monday), it was very testing batting second. Jason (Smith) would have learned a hell of a lot about his game and others have learnt from him but also from the experience.

“We want to keep doing that, keep growing the base and hopefully we’ll start winning more and more games as they become more comfortable in international cricket.”