In one Sheffield Shield match as South Australian captain, Johan Botha has seen enough.
The South African says the Redbacks are mentally weak, have a culture of losing, and forecast swinging a selection axe.
SA’s winless Shield streak extended to 18 games on Friday when crunched by an innings and 30 runs by Tasmania in Adelaide.
“I would say it’s in the head,” Botha said.
“From two or three years or probably even longer, the guys just haven’t done it.
“That is the only thing you can point at, it’s a mental thing … that could be stuff from the past that is creeping in, but we have got to find a way soon.”
The Redbacks last triumphed in a Shield game in late November 2010.
And there are only six longer winless sequences in Shield history – three of them by SA.
But the Redbacks’ current winless streak is well shy of the longest ever – Tasmania went 40 Shield games without a win from 1984 to 1988.
Botha missed SA’s outright loss to Queensland last week while on Twenty20 World Cup duties with his native South Africa.
And his initial match as captain produced a familiar sorry SA tale: Tasmania batted first, plundered 3(dec)-403, then skittled the Redbacks twice, for 224 and 149.
“There is no excuses, it’s just not good enough as a team,” Botha said.
“It’s not just this game or the previous game, it has come for a few seasons now.
“Talk is cheap – talking is not going to help us now, we need to start performing and that is how simple it is.
“We have spoken for hours and still haven’t changed it.
“Now, there is going to be changes, we can’t keep going with the same team … that is the reality, that some guys could go.”
Botha, like most of his new teammates, was largely ineffectual in his Shield debut, taking 1-63 from 15 overs and making a duck and five.
“It’s not the start I would have liked,” he said.
“But you don’t always want the easy job … I’m up to the challenge.”