New No 3 aims to break mental shackles and focus on playing more freely

David Bedingham’s chums provided a solution that sounds very simple to the challenge faced by the Proteas from one of the all-time great bowling attacks.

“They were saying ‘reverse sweep’ and smack them across the line … yeah, there was not a lot of thought from them. They’re mostly club players,” Bedingham laughed.

Test cricket’s an easy game when you’re sitting at the bar or on the couch.

Facing up to Mitchell Starc, Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Nathan Lyon — who have taken a combined 1,658 Test wickets between them — is slightly tougher, as Bedingham can attest.

“In First Class cricket you face maybe two decent bowlers and then you can cash in later against a third or fourth one. But you get through six balls of Cummins and then you look and it’s Starc, and then you get through their spells, and then, flip, it’s Hazlewood and Lyon. It’s tough,” said Bedingham.

He and Aiden Markram were SA’s two best batters in the first Test, but it says everything about the Proteas’ troubles in Durban that they managed just one half-century across the two innings.

Bedingham scored 49 and 46 and spent a total 212 minutes at the crease, which included a length period against the new ball after Ryan Rickelton’s early dismissals, allowing him a feel for the potency of the great Australian quartet.

There was plenty for the Proteas to unpack after the Durban debacle, where too many batters weren’t able to resist the pressure created by the Australians. There were a host of soft dismissals and the selectors moved quickly to wield the axe, with Tristan Stubbs and Kyle Verreynne both chopped.

Ryan Rickleton will don the wicketkeeping gloves, with Matthew Breetzke likely to resume his Test career as Markram’s opening partner, while Marques Ackerman is set for a Test debut, probably in the No 5 spot.

Ackerman could bat at 3, but Bedingham’s efforts in the first Test warrant keeping him in that position, and provide at least a modicum of stability to a batting unit that has chopped and changed plenty of times in the last three years.

The Kingsmead Test was the third match in which Bedingham had batted at 3, after playing there for the first time in Western Province’s opening matches in the First Class Series. He made centuries in each innings against KwaZulu-Natal in the match immediately preceding the Australia series.

Bedingham says it doesn’t bother him where he bats. “Personally I go about (batting) the same. When you bat at No 3 there’s three slips and a gully, so that offers more chances to score. At 5 it’s different, maybe two (slips) and (a gully) and a cover in.

“I don’t change much or think about it too much. It’s a different challenge, but one I’m up for.”

The 32-year-old said he became weighed down by the pressure of the international game and is aware that with only one 100 in his 16 Test career, more is expected of him.

“When I first started in Test cricket I thought it was a bonus, because I didn’t think it would happen. After my first five Tests I felt free. I wasn’t thinking about my technique and it was a case of ‘see ball, hit ball’.”

It was in the fourth of those five Tests that he made 110 against New Zealand as part of the “C-team” tour in 2024. “In the last year, my last 10 Tests, I’ve been thinking about my technique, thinking about what outsiders say, and struggled big time.

“I had a good summer at Durham. It’s just cricket. I know its our jobs, but there are a lot bigger issues in SA and the world. Hopefully I will just enjoy it.”

The Proteas batters know that to succeed in the rest of the series, they have to be more resilient, and revert pressure onto the Australian bowlers. “In our first innings (six) batters got to 30.

“When Kesh (Maharaj) and Simon (Harmer) were batting in the first innings, the ball was softer and it looked a lot easier. If we could have been four or five down there, the game could have been different,’ said Bedingham.

“It’s about trying to take (the Australian bowlers) to 80 overs, 100 overs or 120 overs. I know they’re machines but everyone gets tired eventually - hopefully.”