This has been all to obvious yet again at SuperSport Centurion in a series which carries the name of the pay channel and has the coach Peter Kirsten, shaking his head and wondering about the ability of the side he has inherited.
While Northerns fire well as a limited-overs unit and the dressing room vibe reverberates around the venues where they play, there is a different mind set when it comes to the four-day scenario. And, as the coach so rightly points out, few sides can come back and win a game after being dismissed for first innings totals of 97 and 116.
``You are just not competing if you are bowled out for such low first innings totals,'' he admitted with candid frankness.
``I must admit than I am at a loss for words to explain it. Our preparation has been good throughout but here we are having lost two games.
``If you has suggested to me before we flew to Port Elizabeth 10 days ago we would lose our first two A Section series games as badly as we have I would have laughed,'' he said.
``Now we need to sit down and look at where we are going from here, examine our options and plans,'' he said yesterday after Border beat Northerns by 268 runs at Centurion after being bowled out for 200 within an hour on the final morning of the game.
Although Martin van Jaarsveld and Grant Morgan managed to stretch their partnership to 67 for the seventh wicket, it was a little too much like passive resistance as the lower order capitulated after Van Jaarsveld departed for 110.
As with Keith Medlycott in his first season, Kirsten was quite frankly stumped for the right answers. While there has been, as yet, no mention of separate limited-overs and four-day squads that possibility could emerge as the season progresses. Kirsten's next task on his diary is to sit down and select a side to play Boland in Paarl as well as the B side to play North West in the UCB Bowl at Centurion this weekend.
``It's simple really: we need to bat better. To achieve that we have to keep on working,'' he agreed.
Kirsten also admitted that the plan to go into four-day series games with a four-pronged pace attack had been scrapped to strengthen the batting. He had hoped that Mike Rindel, who scored his 5 000 first class-runs for Northerns in this match against Border, and Steve Elworthy would provide the substance needed. But this had not materialised and had added to the pressure after the middle-order ``was blown away'' on Sunday.
``It's been a difficult time. First leaving Mark Davis out and then beefing up the batting didn't work. It's not easy as while there have been some fine batting performances there is a need to get them collectively,'' he commented.
``We need to have players scoring runs more consistently and building bigger first innings scores than we are,'' he said in reference to the scores against Eastern Province and Border. ``If we are to be competitive it is a problem we just have to solve.''
Kirsten did not plan to make too many changes for the game against Paarl where a slow pitch might mean looking for an extra spinner with perhaps Quentin Still being considered and there is also the option of Deon Jordaan as an opener.