De Zorzi ready to deliver more as Proteas set sights on second Test

While it may have looked as if Tony de Zorzi was attempting to apply a game plan infused with “Bazball” in the first Test against West Indies, his more attacking batting was simply the result of what the conditions dictated.

De Zorzi acknowledged he was not consciously trying to entertain or attract new eyeballs to the Test format. Any fun and games can be saved for the digital tour diary in which De Zorzi, by his own admission, gets to speak “nonsense”, Kagiso Rabada does a “pitch report” at the beach and skipper Temba Bavuma can show off the results of his many hours spent in the gym.

On the field, it’s a serious business, which De Zorzi explained involved adjusting to unfamiliar conditions and meant understanding that playing with more aggression when the ball was new, created chances to score quicker.

“It wasn’t a conscious thing, like telling myself to play ‘Shuksball’ or something,” De Zorzi chirped. “It wasn’t about trying to entertain people. I’m not quite there, where I can think like that.”

He was pleased with the intent he showed in his two innings in the drawn first Test in which he scored 78 and 45, though he would have liked to have kicked on in the first “dig”.

However persevering on an extremely slow Queens Park Oval pitch will stand him and the rest of the batters in good stead for the second Test, which the Proteas expect will be played in similar conditions at Providence Stadium in Georgetown, Guyana, from Thursday.

“I’m used to the ball coming on to the wicket and scoring squarer on the offside and the legside, so it was important to remain cognisant of the fact that I will have to score most of my runs by hitting the ball a lot straighter.”

It was the same for opening partner Aiden Markram, who like De Zorzi grew up playing on the bouncy, quicker pitches on the highveld.

“You can ‘hit’ a lot of fielders, because there are a lot of straight fields set. You have to keep each other engaged, not get bored … we’ve played together at Tuks and the Titans so we have a rapport, we can tell a couple of jokes, to keep it light, and then switch back on,” De Zorzi, who has subsequently moved to Western Province, said of rekindling a relationship at the top of the Proteas batting order.