SA bowling coach Langeveldt on NZ quarantine: 'It’s been a hard lockdown'

The 10 days the SA senior men’s cricket team spent in a managed isolation and quarantine hotel in Christchurch has been the worst for Proteas bowling coach Charl Langeveldt.

The team has been cocooned in their hotel rooms since they arrived in New Zealand on February 5 for a two-match Test series.

They only moved out to their own hotel on Monday and started practising and training as a full group with sessions in the middle.

Though the team was allowed to have nets and gym sessions and started training in small groups after the first three days of isolation, New Zealand’s Covid-19 restrictions are among the toughest in the world and Langeveldt found out the hard way.

“It’s been a hard lockdown. That’s all I can say,” said Langeveldt from Christchurch.

He has been to strict tours to the West Indies, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Pakistan and the Twenty20 World Cup in the UAE with the Proteas in the last year, but nothing compares to New Zealand's quarantine restrictions.

“It was one of the hardest lockdowns I have ever been in but we are out now and we have got to practise. The first six days were tough and then from eight to 10 was even tougher.”

The team had their first practice session in overcast conditions on Monday at Hagley Oval, the venue for the two Test matches, and Langeveldt said he was excited by the look of the wickets.

“It can be misleading but it actually played a lot better and that is how New Zealand wickets are. It looks green when you first get there. It does probably swing a bit with the new ball but then it gets easier when the ball gets older.

“Make them play with the new ball, fuller lengths and once the ball gets older you just need to go back to your six or eight metre lengths.”

Langeveldt said the bowling unit will be pursuing fuller lengths to challenge the defences of the likes of stand-in captain Tom Latham, Will Young and Devon Conway at the top of the order.

“We are focused on bowling a bit fuller. We normally bowl [lengths of] eight to six metres and with a new ball we probably try to get our lengths at five-and-a-half or six.

“We practised at the university ground and the guys were a bit short to start with and then we got fuller.”

Langeveldt said bowling spearhead Kagiso Rabada, who was rested for the three-match ODI series against India after a physically taxing series against the Indians, is in good shape.

“Rabada has looked good, Lungi Ngidi has looked good and Duane Olivier also and you have Marco Jansen. Everyone is bowling at fuller lengths.

“In New Zealand it will have to be a team effort where everyone chips in with two wickets here and three wickets there.”