2023 ICC women's T20 World Cup – Bulletproof Truth

Du Preez presides, for now, after Moreeng marathon finally ends

“Whatever you know about cricket, the moment you move into the women’s space you find out that you might know nothing.” – Dillon du Preez, South Africa interim coach

Telford Vice / Cape Town

HILTON Moreeng’s marathon of more than 11 years as South Africa’s women’s team’s coach is over. But who his permanent replacement might be remains as uncertain as it has been for the almost 15 months that CSA have searched for his successor.

Moreeng has been in the job since December 2012. His last match in charge was to have been the T20 World Cup final between South Africa and Australia at Newlands in February last year. But CSA’s failure to settle on a suitable successor meant he was retained on a series of interim contracts.

On Friday, CSA said Moreeng had decided to relinquish the position. Dillon du Preez, who was appointed assistant coach in September 2020, will step in until the end of the tour to India in June.

Last year’s final is the only World Cup decider any senior South Africa team, female or male, have reached. Moreeng took his team to four other semifinals in both formats. Under him South Africa won 84 of 149 ODIs and 60 of 127 T20Is, an overall success rate of 52.17%.

Moreeng was the first fulltime coach for South Africa’s women’s team. He was appointed almost a year before CSA first decided to contract women, and he was more or less a one-person support staff. Nearly eight years later, when Du Preez came on board, the team had a manager, a strength and conditioning coach, a doctor and a physiotherapist. Now they also have specialist batting and fielding coaches, with Du Preez taking care of the bowling. Moreeng has been an important figure in the successful metamorphosis of women’s cricket in South Africa from an amateur pursuit to fully-fledged professionalism.

“Whatever you know about cricket, the moment you move into the women’s space you find out that you might know nothing,” Du Preez told a press conference on Friday. “What Hilton has done for me has been amazing. I couldn’t have picked a better guy to learn from.”

But Moreeng’s team have outgrown him. In August, not quite six months after the T20 World Cup final, it emerged senior players had written to CSA to express their dissatisfaction with his methods, which they considered outdated. That was thought to be the reason for Suné Luus resigning the captaincy and for Chloe Tryon leaving the squad. The unhappiness has been reflected in the results — since the T20 World Cup, South Africa have won 12 games and lost 15.

The players’ problems with Moreeng weren’t personal. Instead, they felt he had run out of the kind of ideas they were exposed to in foreign franchise leagues. Given that delicate situation, had CSA consulted with the players to see if they were happy with Du Preez?

“We did acknowledge what transpired in the environment a few months ago,” Enoch Nkwe, CSA’s director of cricket, said. “We had a couple of meetings with everyone included, the management and the players, to figure out the real issues and what can be done in the short term. And also what can be worked on from a long-term point of view to try and better the environment and strengthen it.” Du Preez was more direct: “I’ve got the commitment from the management and the players.”

Considering Du Preez had been Moreeng’s assistant for almost four years, and seeing as his charges approved of him, had he been offered the position permanently? “Those are going to be the conversations that are going to be taking place,” Nkwe said. “We didn’t want to dump everything immediately. We also need him to understand if he would like to do this moving forward. There are also internal processes that need to be understood and respected. It was probably better to go the interim route while we’re trying to sort out a lot of those things internally. And to allow Dillon the space to think through things in the medium to long term. Maybe he puts his hand up and it’s a role that he’d like to take forward. Who knows. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Did Du Preez want the job permanently? “I think I will want it,” he said. “It’s too early to give you a 100% answer. But that’s where you want to be, at the highest level. I would really want to coach there; I enjoy it a lot. But let’s talk after India.”

Nkwe said in November that interviews for the position had been conducted and that Moreeng’s successor was due to be named before the tour to Australia in January and February this year. That did not happen, and Moreeng stayed on. “Unfortunately we couldn’t find fitting candidates to take the team forward,” Nkwe said on Friday. He added that Moreeng had agreed in January to “help us with the transition post the 50-over World Cup next year”. But said he changed his mind last month after Sri Lanka earned their first ever series win in South Africa, prevailing 2-1 in the T20Is, and drew the ODI rubber. “Unfortunately he came to the end of the season and felt he didn’t have it anymore to continue,” Nkwe said.

What now for Moreeng, who at 46 is far from at the end of the coaching road? “We would like to retain him in whichever way because you don’t just let go of such experience, especially in women’s cricket,” Nkwe said.

If Du Preez’ name sounds familiar to those who don’t remember him as a flashy bowling allrounder on South Africa’s domestic scene, it might be because he once had Sachin Tendulkar and Ajinkya Rahane caught in the slips with consecutive deliveries. He was playing for Royal Challengers Bangalore against Mumbai Indians in a 2009 IPL game at the Wanderers, and came within a centimetre or two of a hattrick — his next delivery hit JP Duminy’s pads too high. When Du Preez had Duminy caught behind with the second ball of his next over, he had taken three wickets for no runs.

Fifteen years and exactly one week later, Du Preez isn’t hitting the headlines that hard anymore. But, as Nkwe said, “who knows” whether he will again.

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Women win with CSA

“How I wish others are listening as we speak now.” – Zizi Kodwa, South Africa’s sports minister, laments other codes’ failure to professionalise women’s sport.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

CRICKET went has gone where no other sport in South Africa has. Not only will women’s international players earn the same match fees as their male counterparts, the women’s domestic leagues will be professional. That will make CSA the only national board besides NZC and the BCCI to offer pay parity on game days, while CA’s basic contract is the same for men and women.

The changes will be implemented from South Africa’s ODI and T20I series against Pakistan in Karachi, which start on September 1, and the league is on the cards for the coming 2023/24 season. The measures will add the equivalent of USD2.13-million to CSA’s bills over the next three years, USD799,000 of which will be paid by government.

The top division of six of the 16 current women’s provincial teams will form the professional league, which will feature competitions in both white-ball formats that will carry prizemoney for the winners. The teams — the Lions, the Titans, Western Province, the Dolphins, Free State and the Garden Route Badgers — will be able to contract 11 players each, up from the current six. Salaries will be equal to the best paid players in the second division of the men’s game. Each team will be served by a head and an assistant coach, a physiotherapist and a strength and conditioning specialist. At least half of the support staff will be women.

No other team sport in South Africa will offer the levels of equality to women that cricket has promised. Indeed, none of the country’s other team sports boast a professional competition. Those facts were not lost on sports minister Zizi Kodwa.

“What we are celebrating today is not about monetary value but about leadership and political will,” Kodwa said at the league’s launch in Tshwane, formerly Pretoria, on Tuesday. “When I came [into the ministry] in March I heard about other federations, as far back as 2018, to which the department made commitments of millions for professionalising women’s sport. To date that has not been realised.

“The time for long statements and endless talk and promises must end. In the first week of our appointment we met with the top five federations in the country, and we stressed this point. [CSA] seem to be the only federation who understood what we said.

“I asked earlier whether it was deliberate or an omission not to invite other federations for this occasion, because I think they could learn a thing or two. How I wish others are listening as we speak now.”

The football suits, in particular. South Africa’s first-choice national women’s team refused to play Botswana in a friendly on July 2 because, they said, the field at the venue the South African Football Association (Safa) had allocated for the match, a veritable cabbage patch of clay and clumps of grass 50 kilometres outside Johannesburg, was dangerous. The players feared the conditions could lead to injuries, and that with the World Cup looming in Australia and New Zealand. They were also unhappy that they would not earn any money from Safa for playing in the tournament. Things went better on the field, where the South Africans became the only team from their country — male or female — to reach the last 16 of a football World Cup.

“We do not wish to see any federation go through what Banyana Banyana [the national women’s football team’s nickname] went through,” Kodwa said.

Tuesday’s news kept South African sport’s focus squarely on women. Suné Luus’ team reached the final of the T20 World Cup, which South Africa hosted in February. The netball World Cup was played in Cape Town in July and August, and while the home side finished sixth — they were runners-up in 1995 — and the event was marred by organisational issues, the team were passionately supported. There was warm appreciation, too, for the football side’s efforts in their World Cup, which ended on Sunday.

That cricket has been the only code to recognise the development of the women’s game and put its money where its mouth is should be commended. CSA get a lot wrong, but not everything.

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Luus no longer captain, Tryon absent as Moreeng moan grows

“The team are winning despite him, not because of him.” – an opinion of Hilton Moreeng.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

SUNé Luus, who captained South Africa to the T20 World Cup final in February, is no longer in the position. The vice-captain, Chloe Tryon, is not in the squad. Unhappiness over the re-appointment of Hilton Moreeng as coach is understood to be at the heart of the issue.

On Friday CSA announced a squad to play three matches in each of the white-ball formats against Pakistan in Karachi from September 1 to 14. Luus was selected but not named captain. Tryon, a release said, had “requested a leave of absence” and was not picked.

No captain was named. The decision had been deferred until closer to the tour, “ensuring a seamless transition and continued success for the team”. That seems unlikely given the dressing room is split over Moreeng, who has been South Africa’s coach since December 2012.

Senior players, Cricbuzz has learnt, wrote to CSA expressing dissatisfaction over Moreeng’s coaching philosophy. Although Moreeng is not unpopular at an interpersonal level, several sources have said some of the players feel “the team are winning despite him, not because of him”. His methods are deemed outdated, an opinion supported by the fact that he has been in the job for almost 11 years. During the latter part of his tenure South Africa’s players have been exposed to modern coaching styles in competitions like the Big Bash League and The Hundred.

The complaint reached CSA’s board, which referred it to its cricket committee, which appointed a task team to investigate. It was felt that as the charges against Moreeng were made in a way that did not follow CSA’s established grievance procedures they could not be acted on.

Luus no longer captaining the team is thought to be directly linked to that decision. If she is among the players who have expressed a wish for Moreeng to be removed she could hardly continue in her leadership role. Tryon asking not to be in what looks like an increasingly strained environment is understandable.

Moreeng’s previous contract expired on June 30. That it took CSA until Friday to confirm he would stay on until December 31 would only have inflamed the players’ concerns. Uncertainty fuels unhappiness, a lesson the suits seem determined not to learn.

It is unfortunate that matters have reached this sorry stage considering Luus’ team were the toast of the game in their country not quite six months ago, when — despite being without Lizelle Lee and Dané van Niekerk — they became the first senior South Africa side to reach a World Cup final. Australia beat them by 19 runs, but it seemed they had put the women’s game in their country on its surest footing yet.

CSA now contract 16 players and are set to announce a new professional league, but women’s cricket in South Africa has been impoverished and under-appreciated compared to the men’s game. This year’s T20 World Cup, which was played in front of adoring home crowds, was considered an important step in changing those realities for the better. Now, it feels like a false dawn.

But it cannot be forgotten that Moreeng helped take South Africa to the heights they reached in February, and to the ODI World Cup semifinals in 2017 and 2022. Like his players he had to find ways to win despite scant resources and support for his team. He has been, one administrator said on Friday, “a one-man band” and had “consistently” taken his concerns to CSA about what he and his players needed and lacked.

A dozen of the 15 players who were in the T20 World Cup squad will be on their way to Pakistan in the coming weeks. But, for now, the focus is on the women who won’t be there. And on the man who will.

South Africa squad for Pakistan series: Anneke Bosch, Tazmin Brits, Nadine de Klerk, Mieke de Ridder, Lara Goodall, Sinalo Jafta, Marizanne Kapp, Ayabonga Khaka, Masabata Klaas, Suné Luus, Nonkululeko Mlaba, Tumi Sekhukhune, Nondumiso Shangase, Delmi Tucker, Laura Wolvaardt.

Fixtures (all at the National Stadium in Karachi): T20Is — September 1, 3 and 5. ODIs — September 8, 11 and 14.

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CSA up to speed in fitness rethink, but domestic game lags

“Of course players have a responsibility to be fit, but you can’t nail players for fitness if the systems aren’t good enough.” – Andrew Breetzke, South African Cricketers’ Association chief executive.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

ALAN Shearer spent 1,100 hours on the football pitch playing for Southampton, Blackburn, Newcastle and England. Gary Lineker logged more than 625 hours for Leicester, Everton, Barcelona, Tottenham, England, and Nagoya Grampus.

Shearer played 88.27% of his 767 games from start to finish and Lineker 79.73% of his 444. Between them they were on the field for the equivalent of more than 246 days of Test cricket.

Lineker and Shearer were supremely athletic specimens of the human form: lean, strong, fast and apparently preternaturally equipped to manifest themselves like apparitions at the precise moment a goal needed scoring. Shearer netted 391 for club and country, including a record 260 in the English Premier League. Lineker struck 238 times. Some of football’s biggest clubs paid them millions to do just that. They cost a combined USD30,800,000 in transfer fees alone.

But, had they been South African cricketers, even of a calibre similar to what they were as footballers, they likely wouldn’t have played a single match for the national side despite their ability as ace goal poachers. Because, until a few days ago, CSA wouldn’t have budged from their rigid attitude to fitness. And there was no way Shearer or Lineker would have run two kilometres in less than eight minutes and 30 seconds — the test South Africa’s male cricketers had to pass to be eligible for selection.

“I hated pre-season with a passion,” Shearer said on August 7 on a trailer for a new podcast, The Rest is Football. “It actually used to spoil the last week of my holiday. I just couldn’t run, and everyone used to think I was taking the piss and being lazy. I was 30 or 40 yards back from the group. You used to get the fit guys who used to sprint past you and laugh at you, and I used to shout, ‘Get the fucking ball off us, then let’s see how good you are.’”

Lineker, Shearer’s co-podcaster, empathised: “I was exactly the same. I couldn’t run long distance.” Lineker told the story of being tasked to run, in training, two laps of “a couple of miles” with Spurs’ squad: “On the first lap I was already behind everyone else. I hid behind a bush, and when [the rest of the players] went past me I jumped out and joined them. And I was still last.”

Lizelle Lee and Dané van Niekerk know how Shearer and Lineker felt. Lee retired from international cricket in July last year after missing fitness targets. Van Niekerk wasn’t considered for the T20 World Cup, which was played in South Africa in February, because she failed to run two kilometres in nine minutes and 30 seconds — CSA’s requirement for women. Van Niekerk ended her international career in March.

Lee and Van Niekerk were as central to South Africa’s teams as Shearer and Lineker were to theirs. Lee is second only to Mignon du Preez among her country’s all-time run-scorers in ODIs and first in T20Is, where Van Niekerk is second. Shabnim Ismail, Marizanne Kapp and Van Niekerk are, in that order, South Africa’s leading wicket-takers in ODIs as well as T20Is.

The South Africans reached this year’s T20 World Cup final — the first senior team of any gender from their country to make it to a World Cup decider — where they went down to Australia. What difference might the presence of Lee and Van Niekerk have made to their chances of winning?

What damage might be done to the South Africa’s ODI World Cup campaign in India in October and November should the fitness rule be applied to Sisanda Magala, who is his team’s leading bowler in the format this year in terms of wickets and average but has had trouble running his two kilometres fast enough to satisfy the suits?

These questions might have informed CSA’s decision, which reached the press’ ears at the weekend, to change their approach. In future players who fail fitness tests could, at the coach’s behest, still be selected for South Africa — although the document announcing the change said CSA would “strongly recommend” they “should not take the field in an official match”. A similar approach applies in other countries. South Africa’s catching up in this regard chimes with another change enacted during Enoch Nkwe’s tenure as CSA’s director of cricket: giving coaches, rather than selection panels, the responsibility for picking squads and XIs.

The upshot was that “coaches must take ownership of their teams”, Andrew Breetzke, the chief executive of the South African Cricketers’ Association, told Cricbuzz. That, Breetzke said, was part of a newfound maturity about the cricket industry’s frailties in South Africa: “Of course players have a responsibility to be fit, but you can’t nail players for fitness if the systems aren’t good enough. Either you’re policy-driven or value-driven. I’d say this is a more value-driven system.”

CSA provides much of their provinces’ funding, including for the provision of fitness experts. But, too often, the cash-strapped provinces spend as little as they can by appointing junior staff — who do not have the skill and experience, nor the players’ respect, to enforce a regime that will produce more physically honed cricketers. So they don’t, and the bad habits are entrenched by the time players reach international level — where some of them suffer a rude awakening. As one administrator said, “Unless you change the culture below it’s always going to be an issue.”

That fitness isn’t an issue in countries where domestic structures are better resourced proves the point. Players arrive at the top tier in fine fettle, and stay that way because being in the best shape possible has long been an entrenched part of their game.

Rob Walter was South Africa’s men’s strength and conditioning specialist from 2009 to 2013 and their white-ball head coach from January. Did he see the question from a fitness or a coaching perspective?

“It’s the oldest cliché in the book, but it’s about following the process,” Walter told a press conference on Monday. “For me it’s a process of getting guys fitter and up to standard. I have an obsession with getting better, so I expect everyone in the team to look to get better. It’s our job, as the support staff, to support them in that endeavour.”

Magala is an interesting example. “Sisanda has been electric for us on the park recently and we want to acknowledge those performances,” Walter said. “But we also want to acknowledge that our endeavour is to get better, fitter and stronger because that gives us a better chance of performing. Our job is to provide the platform for the players to improve.”

The argument is that Magala would be an even better bowler, and less susceptible to injury, if he lost weight. The counter is that none of South Africa’s other, slimmer, seamers are bowling as well as he is. Magala was also successful in the inaugural edition of the SA20 in January and February, when only four bowlers took more wickets than his 14 in a dozen games. How did the SA20 feel about fitness?

“It’s not something the league got involved in,” Graeme Smith, the tournament’s commissioner, told reporters in Johannesburg on Tuesday. “We come up with the regulations that the teams operate within. Fitness requirements we leave to the teams and their professionals to manage.”

Smith was Nkwe’s predecessor as CSA director of cricket. The old rules predated Smith’s appointment in December 2019 but had not been comprehensively enforced. That raised questions over fairness: some players who might have fallen foul of the conditioning police did not. Others did. Consistency was required. That understandable ambition lost its way, through the involvement of elements at CSA that went beyond Smith’s ambit, into adherence rigorous enough to deny defaulting players places in teams.

Lineker never knew how that felt. Hiding behind a bush when he should have been running with his teammates earned him a summons to manager Terry Venables’ office and a dressing down. But he wasn’t benched. Because he, like Shearer, was hired to score goals. Not run. That’s what midfielders do.

Cricket’s version of that logic has landed in South Africa, albeit too late for Lee and Van Niekerk. But not for Magala, and those who will come after him for as long as the domestic game can’t keep up with international standards.

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Transcendent Ismail pulls plug on international fire, fury and fun

“Dear cricket family.” – how Shabnim Ismail began her goodbye to the international stage.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

THE smile in Shabnim Ismail’s eyes gave her away on an enchanted evening under a bedouin canopy on a beach in Cape Town in February. Along with every player in the T20 World Cup, she was at the city government’s function thrown to welcome all involved in the tournament.

One of Ismail’s opponents walked in her direction. As the player was about to pass Ismail the South African caught her gaze and stuck out a leg in a mock attempt to trip her. The leg was quickly withdrawn and the two players shared a laugh. It was an insight into a quality Ismail isn’t often credited with: a mischievous sense of fun.

Far more often we have seen Ismail as the embodiment of the angry fast bowler; 1.65 metres and 60 kilogrammes of sheer ponytailed fury liable to lash out with gestures, facial expressions and verbally at opponents and teammates alike. And it worked. Like the rest of the best in her field she became more than the sum of her slight parts. So big that she was hardly challenged when she proclaimed herself “the fastest bowler in the world”. You want to argue with that? Good luck. Besides, she nailed down the numbers to support the hype.

Ismail is South Africa’s leading wicket-taker in both white-ball formats. But she transcended cricket in her country and became one of the all-time greats of the world game. Only Jhulan Goswami has taken more wickets in ODIs. Sixty-four more, but the Indian bowled 3,853 more deliveries. Two of the three bowlers behind Ismail have sent down more balls than she has. She is fourth among T20I wicket-takers.

Ismail was one of five debutants in an ODI in Laudium in January 2007. That August she featured in South Africa’s first T20I, against New Zealand in Taunton. She has been the heart and soul of South Africa’s attack for much of the ensuing 16 years.

On Wednesday she pulled the plug on all that by announcing her retirement from the international stage. That brings the number of caps worth of experience South Africa have lost from December 2022, or when Mignon du Preez retired, to 1,106. Du Preez has been followed into the sunset by Lizelle Lee, Dané van Niekerk, Trisha Chetty and now Ismail. Those five players account for more than a quarter of the places in the XIs of all the 380 matches South Africa have played across the formats in their history.

Debating who is the greatest among the famous five would be tedious, futile and hopelessly subjective. But there can be no discounting Ismail from that conversation, should we be churlish enough to want to have it. We should be satisfied to know she was central to the best game of cricket any senior South Africa team — male or female — have yet played, the T20 World Cup semifinal at Newlands in February.

Ismail breathed defiance in the face of heavily by dismissing Sophia Dunkley and Alice Capsey in the sixth over after Danni Wyatt and Dunkley had rattled up an opening stand of 53 off 31, and then bowling Heather Knight off her pads with three balls left in the match. The sight of Knight on one knee, head bowed, the toe of the bat she held in one hand resting lightly in sudden, shocked repose on the pitch, was a study in dignified defeat. It told of the truth that, on the day, South Africa were the better team. Ismail deserved much of the credit for establishing that fact.

So it says something that, despite her prima donna on-field persona, Ismail began her sign-off statement on Wednesday with “Dear cricket family”. There was more selflessness in her explaining her decision by saying she wanted to “spend more time with my family, particularly my siblings and parents as they get older”.

But she will keep the fast bowling fire burning in franchise leagues. Fresh from playing in the inaugural WPL in March, she is an established drawcard in the WBBL and the FairBreak tournament. Expect to see as much of her as her almost 35-year-old body will allow.

Her mind? That’s as sharp as ever. Its job, along with stoking the fire, is to keep finding the fun to put a smile in her eyes.

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Revolution rekindles South Africa’s hope

“We’ve played some nice cricket but by no means our best cricket. That’s the exciting part.” – Rob Walter

Telford Vice / Cape Town

REVOLUTION rocked and rolled in the Wanderers Long Room on Sunday in the dark hours after South Africa’s international season ended with the men’s team thumping the Netherlands in an ODI. The dizzy dancing was fuelled by Sister Bettina, a rough and raunchy rap delivered in the kwaito style.

The lyrics veer from beer to condoms to sex workers, and the message is that women will sleep with men who flash cash. It was first sung by Nkosinathi Mfeka, better known as Mgarimbe — hustler in English — impromptu over a premixed beat in a Joburg club late one night in 2005. The next day an embarrassed Mfeka, who has admitted he was “wasted” when he came up with the words on the spot, asked Jabu Mngeni, the producer and DJ who had created the music, and who was also in the club, to delete his recording of the track. Mngeni said he would. He didn’t.

The brassy, bassy boom, which marches alongside Mfeka’s hoarse, halting voice, has since become something of a national anthem of the street. The song went viral not on radio but on the sound systems of the approximately 250,000 minibus taxis that serve as South Africa’s public transport, ferrying mostly black passengers. In the same way that male birds employ plumage to compete with their peers for female attention, taxis deploy music — loudly — as a marketing tool. Sister Bettina was a perfect fit.

It’s a long way from the street to cathedrals of the middle class establishment like the Wanderers, and further still from there to altars of acceptability like the Long Room. And yet there Sister Bettina was on Sunday, loud and lusty in a place that, in daylight hours, particularly during a Test, can feel like a museum of how things used to be in South Africa and in cricket. As in moored to and marooned in oldness and conservatism and, more often than not, a starchy kind of whiteness.

There is nothing old, conservative of white about Sister Bettina. Just as there wasn’t about many of the gathered guests who felt their inner rhythm rise as the song’s first strains — a sample of Aaliyah’s 2000 hit Try Again — squeezed through the burble. Soon two young women, one black, the other white, were dancing with each other in a way that would have had them brusquely escorted out of this, for so long, strange and unwelcoming place not many years ago.

Onlookers offered cheers and encouragement, but not everyone was amused. “We’ve created a monster,” an administrator murmured under his breath as he ran a wary eye over the scene. He was not what you might think: only a few years older than the current generation of suits. And black. Oldness and conservatism, unlike whiteness, are transferrable.

Happily so is the appeal of venues like the Wanderers. All you need to gain access to its stands and grass banks is a ticket, but first you need the money to buy it and the desire to do so. While more black and brown South Africans have more money than in the country’s apartheid past, they’re not going to spend it in a place where they feel othered or unwanted.

Not many seasons ago the Wanderers was just such a place. So were most of South Africa’s other major grounds. That this is changing is no accident. Like almost every other business in South Africa, the cricket industry knows that if it is to have a future that future will be almost entirely black and largely young. A clear sign that that truth has hit home is the increased number of younger black and brown people in locales like the Long Room, where entrance is strictly by invitation.

Perhaps by pure good luck most of South Africa’s heavyweight provincial unions are in the hands of insightful and energetic chief executives who are driving that change. What isn’t happenstance is that they know what needs to be done to make cricket sustainable and they are getting on with doing it — no mean feat in a society built on centuries of denial. Their efforts are being noticed.

“It’s been great to see the unity on the grass banks,” Rob Walter, South Africa’s white-ball coach since February 1, told a press conference after Sunday’s match. “We’ve spoken about how as a team we’re in a privileged position to be able to inspire and unite our country through sport, and to never take that for granted. But to see that happening on the banks has been awesome. For someone who has been out of the country for seven years [coaching in New Zealand], to see the difference in the people who are watching the game has been awesome as well. It’s been really heartwarming.”

Those spectators, whatever their race, wouldn’t have been in the same mood had the team they were cheering for not made a dramatic u-turn. As recently as January, when South Africa limped home in defeat from a Test series in Australia having lost 10 of their last 15 matches across the formats, a rickety run that included defeat by the Netherlands, cricket was in a deeply dark place. They have since won eight of 12.

Part of the reason for the change of fortunes is that of those first 15 matches, 13 were against serious opposition including England, India and Pakistan. Of the dozen that have followed, nine were against the middling West Indies and the Dutch minnows. But there’s more to South Africa’s improvement than that, and an important chunk of the credit, Walter said, belonged to the ray of sunshine that was beamed into the game from outside the international arena — and which was a factor in an upset victory over England in a home World Cup Super League series in January and February.

“We can’t under-estimate the impact of the SA20 on cricket in South Africa. The general interest and the crowds were significant, and the quality of the cricket was high. Some momentum definitely came out of that and we were able to jump on that against England and play well against them, and that continued.”

The tournament transported cricketminded South Africans to a better place from January 10 to February 12. It exceeded expectations in every respect, far overcoming concerns about its viability in a country where keeping the lights on for as long as it takes to play even a T20 is a daily challenge. Crucially, as it turned out, the three ODIs against England were played during a six-day lull in SA20 action.

Shukri Conrad, the Test coach, stood in for Walter in that rubber. Against the Windies, Walter presided over a 1-1 scoreline in the ODIs and 2-1 loss in the T20Is, and was duly reminded by a reporter at a press conference that he had yet to guide South Africa to success in a rubber. So when Walter arrived for Sunday’s presser, after his team had wrapped up a 2-0 win over the Dutch, he came prepared with a smile and a retort as the reporter positioned his recording device: “Got that series now; I was waiting for you.”

But Walter didn’t need the reality check required by those who have heralded South Africa’s performances against the Netherlands as the brightest of new dawns: “We’ve played some nice cricket but by no means our best cricket. That’s the exciting part.”

Also exciting is who has done the winning. Left out for the series in Australia after failing to reach 50 in 15 innings, Aiden Markram was the leading runscorer and had the highest average in the Tests against the Windies and made 175 in Sunday’s ODI. Sisanda Magala, who has struggled with conditioning challenges, was the leading ODI bowler in terms of wickets and average. He took a career-best 5/43 on Sunday.

And then there’s Temba Bavuma, who stepped down as captain in the wake of his team’s catastrophic exit from the T20 World Cup in November and was rightly left out of the squad for the T20Is against the Windies. He is currently not a viable option in the format because he scores too slowly and should never have been made captain, and therefore undroppable. He is much more valuable in Tests and ODIs, which he has proven again by scoring three centuries and a half-century in his last 10 innings in those formats.

For Walter, Bavuma’s ability to rise above the abuse that comes his way, much of it blatantly or latently racist, was worth more than mere runs: “Temba is a wonderful human being and a great advert for our country. It’s wonderful to share a changeroom with him. The fact that he can play the cricket that he’s played, which has been exceptional, is just the cherry on top for a guy who deserves that and is not given enough cricket for what he has gone through and still play the cricket he has.”

None of which was the most important achievement in South African cricket this season. That accolade belongs to the women’s team, who went where no side from the country have been since 2014 — when their men’s under-19 side won the World Cup — and where no senior team had ever been by reaching the World Cup final. They lost, to Australia, but they made their mark.

“We’re almost seeing it as them setting the standard,” Markram told a press conference days after the final. “It’s something for us to chase, which is a great thing to have for cricket in our country. We saw the power they had to gather so much support in such a short space of time by doing well in a tournament. They’ve inspired us to try and get there as well.”

In more than one sense, then, it feels as if cricket in South Africa has reinvented itself in a matter of weeks. It hasn’t, of course. But it is in far better shape than it was when the year started.

These have been neither the best of times nor the worst of times. Instead, they have been times that have generated a precious feeling that has been gone from the game for too long. Call it the revolution of hope.

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The near deaths and far life of Bernadine Bezuidenhout

“A lot of outsiders don’t understand. It’s just, ‘Bernie, eat more.’ Well, it’s not that easy. ‘Just stop running.’ It’s not that easy.” – Bernadine Bezuidenhout on living with Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

BERNADINE Bezuidenhout might have been dead. She had picked up her best friend, Carolyn Esterhuizen, at Cape Town airport late one night in 2015, and as they drove along the highway and under a bridge a large rock was dropped onto their car.

“I saw this massive boulder coming down,” Bezuidenhout told Cricbuzz. “It hit the side of my car and burst one of my front tyres. I’m from George, a small, safe town [430 kilometres east of Cape Town]. So I got out of the car and called my dad. Carolyn is a born-and-bred Capetonian. She said, ‘Get into your car! Look where we are!’

“Two seconds after I had locked the doors two men came and bashed the windows and tried to get us out. I got the car into first gear and drove on the rim of the wheel with the burst tyre. I don’t think anyone could understand the fear that put into me.”

But there was more: “About a week-and-a-half later, in the middle of the day and the middle of the city, a guy tried to get into my car and pull me out. I decided I couldn’t live like that.”

Bezuidenhout played her last significant match in South Africa in Bloemfontein on April 10, 2015. Her next noteworthy game was in Whangãrei on November 25, 2016. Just 21 when she left South Africa, she had appeared in four ODIs and seven T20Is. She went to Christchurch, and has earned nine ODI and 13 T20I caps for New Zealand. How had she adjusted to her no longer new reality?

“Christchurch is the best city in the world. It’s a city but yet it’s in the country; a city without the crazy traffic. It’s very …,” she paused to settle on the right word: “… peaceful. If I didn’t move then I probably wouldn’t at this stage of my life, when I’m more settled. But when you’re 21 you’re brave. New Zealand is home. It’s an amazing, beautiful country. We’re a family of five-and-a-half million people.”

The start of our interview, which was conducted over Zoom during the women’s T20 World Cup in South Africa in February, coincided with the beginning of one of the scheduled power blackouts that have become an almost daily bane of South Africans’ lives. That has been the case, at some times more than others, since 2007 — eight years before Bezuidenhout left the country. Her exasperation, which she expressed once batteries on both ends of our electronic equation had kicked in, showed how Kiwi she had become: “I can’t get used to this loadshedding thing! I don’t know how you guys live like this!”

Even so, she is reminded she is not from New Zealand by her compatriots’ struggle to pronounce a surname common in South Africa. Similarly to Australians mangling Labuschagne — which has nothing to do with Shane — Kiwis tend to bastardise Bezuidenhout into Bezoodenhoot: “I don’t know how that zoo gets in there. It’s taken a lot of training. I’m like, ‘It’s ba-zay-den-hout; hout like boat.’ Then they get it.”

But that’s a small price to pay for uninterrupted electricity, exponentially less crime, and professional fairness: “We’re really blessed because there’s now equal match fees for women and men, in our domestic competitions as well. The girls are earning decent money playing cricket. NZC have gone out of their way to invest in the women’s game.”

And there the story of Bezuidenhout’s cricket career might have reached its conclusion. Or will do when she retires a few years and many more matches into the future, adding to a record that, at 29, features two list A centuries and 11 50s, half-a-dozen T20 half-centuries, and 115 matches as one of the slickest wicketkeepers in the game. But, as she discovered during a doctor’s appointment with Lesley Nicol, the New Zealand netball great who is now a sport and exercise health expert, her life wasn’t going to be that simple. She had veered towards death again.

“Lesley told me my bone density was like that of a 50-year-old woman. I was 26. I was in and out of hospital. She said if I accepted a contract and played another season, I wouldn’t make it through that season. My career would be done. I would never run again. I could die of a heart attack.”

Bezuidenhout had Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport, or RED-S. “Years and years of overtraining and underfuelling, that is what causes RED-S. I was training for seven hours a day and eating maybe 1,000 calories a day.” She sounds like a prime candidate to contract the condition: “I love exercise, I love the gym, I’m a health fanatic, I’m a nutritionist by training, I’ve always been super-driven. In cricket you can’t always control the outcome of things, but being the fittest person in the room was something I could control.”

To do so Bezuidenhout put herself on road to oblivion: “I remember being in Australia five years ago, and I was so sick I couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t eat, I weighed 53 kilogrammes. I’d get some food in and vomit it out in the changeroom. It got to the point where I couldn’t digest food. It would sit in my stomach and just come out. I was eating 400 or 500 calories a day. This went on for three or four years. A lot of outsiders don’t understand. It’s just, ‘Bernie, eat more.’ Well, it’s not that easy. ‘Just stop running.’ It’s not that easy. It’s more mental than anything else.” Her period was part of what she lost along the way: “I was amenorrheac for 10 years, from when I was 18.”

The US-based National Library of Medicine says “amenorrhea is … common in female athletes, particularly those participating in aesthetic sports (ballet, other dance genres, figure-skating, and gymnastics) and endurance sports (cross-country running)”. Given the extremes to which Bezuidenhout subjected her body, it was no surprise that she fell victim.

Women are often prepared for matches by men, who cannot know what it is to be female in any environment, much less an intensely physical environment. “We’ve got to have honest conversations with our trainers,” Bezuidenhout said. “They need to be aware how to train female athletes around the menstrual cycle, because scientifically most studies are done on male athletes, and we know we’re different.” Would having more female trainers help? “Yes, or just male trainers who are willing to learn. There’s not enough information out there.”

Along with her period, Bezuidenhout’s career was taken from her. She didn’t play from January 28, 2020 to November 20, 2022. That’s an absence of 1,027 days, or more than enough time to convince yourself and those who care about you — personally and professionally — that you have moved on from cricket. “Me and Lesley had a very tough, honest conversation. She said, ‘Bernie’, you’re probably never going to play professionally again.’ There was no expectation. So I feel really privileged and grateful and — this is going to sound really cheesy — I don’t take anything for granted. You never know when’s the last time you’re going to play or represent your country.”

Bezuidenhout had plenty of time to contemplate that as a reality, and much else. “I think back on those two-and-a-half years, nearly three years, that I took off from cricket because of my RED-S as probably the most challenging but yet the best time of my life. I reflected on my career as a cricketer and everything that I was doing with my life. It gave me a chance to look at things from a different perspective.

“As athletes we struggle with identity. ‘What are we going to do if we’re not playing?’ And, ‘If I’m not playing sport, who am I?’ I was always labelled this talented kid. There was always massive expectation. And when you reach international level and you’re ill and you’re still searching for more things in life, you think to yourself, ‘What more is there? What else can I do?’”

When what you think is everything is taken away from you, do you see what really matters? “One hundred percent. Then you realise there’s so much more to life. I love the game of cricket. I’ve been playing since I was seven. But then you dig deeper, and find that there’s so much more to me than just being an athlete. I needed to find out what that was away from sport. For 90% of my life it was just Bernadine the athlete.”

Where did Bernadine the former athlete’s journey of discovery lead her? To jail. “It gave me an awesome opportunity to work with youth in prison. That gave me perspective. I was like, ‘Holy crap. I have so much to be grateful for. While I’m travelling the world we have kids who are committing suicide, who don’t have anybody.’ Now cricket is a hobby. Yes, I get paid for what I do, which is awesome. But there’s such a good balance in my life.”

Bezuidenhout summarised her involvement with the inmates of Christchurch Men’s Prison and Rolleston Prison as “using sport and dance to connect with at-risk youth”. In some ways, she was made for the role. In others, not: “I’m a confident person, a pocket rocket. I’m also short [and, she didn’t say, slight], but I was a shoulder for these boys to lean on. I spent two years within the prisons, and it was in the youth unit where I found my purpose in life.

“It was amazing — these big gangster dudes, and they were so accepting. We had nothing in common, but if you go in there and you don’t judge people and you’re open and you just want to hear their stories, you find that these big men melt. A lot of them are actually big softies. They’re really good people. It’s always been in my heart to work with youth. Taking a break from sport gave me the opportunity to explore what I’d always wanted to do.”

That experience led Bezuidenhout to found the Epic Sports Project Charitable Trust in New Zealand and the Epic Foundation in South Africa. Both organisations work to give young people who have not been handed the best lot in life ways to get onto more solid paths. Bezuidenhout’s challenges were different, but she also needed rerouting.

While she was away from the game, Katey Martin retired. Wicketkeepers who last as long as Martin in international cricket — almost 19 years, in which she was behind the stumps 199 times — can seem irreplaceable. Keepers are, tactically, culturally and even geographically in the field, at the heart of their teams. To not see that familiar, even familial, figure crouching down with a last, loud quip before the bowler sets off is unsettling.

More so for the New Zealanders, who have been through Isabella Gaze, Jessica McFadyen, Maddy Green and Bezuidenhout in the 23 white-ball internationals they have played since Martin hung up her gloves and pads. What sets Bezuidenhout apart is that she is a top order batter, but she will know she is, as yet, far from irreplaceable. Somehow that doesn’t matter as much as it would have a few years ago.

“Now it’s about enjoying every moment that I get,” Bezuidenhout said. “And about being smart about training and fuelling. For instance today was optional training. I’m tired, so I rested. In the past I’d push myself and train. More is often less. We can’t perform if we’re not healthy. You matter. Your body is important. You know your body better than anybody else.”

And her body tells her, every month, the good news: “They said it would take me as long as I’d been amenorrheac — 10 years! — to get my period back. And it took me two! That’s a miracle in itself.”

Bernadine Bezuidenhout, woman, “proud auntie” of 19-month-old Sage, friend, Kiwi, Cantabrian, cricketer — in that order — might have been dead. Instead, with neither apology nor regret nor even the faintest discernible tarnish from what has gone before, she is spectacularly alive. That rock is lucky it didn’t hit her.

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Van Niekerk’s fine international career ends in controversy

“My heart breaks for you. You deserve so much better.” – Marizanne Kapp on Dané van Niekerk.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

DANé van Niekerk ended her international career on Thursday, six days after her wife, Marizanne Kapp, hinted on social media that that was imminent. Van Niekerk leaves a skills, experience, leadership, character and personality void and a string of stellar stats, but also controversy over the circumstances that led her to walk away from South Africa’s teams at the age of 29.

Just five players have scored more runs for South Africa in ODIS than Van Niekerk, and only Lizelle Lee has made more in T20Is. Van Niekerk is third among South Africa’s ODI as well as the T20I wicket-takers. She is one of six women’s players worldwide with more than 1,000 runs, 50 wickets and 50 catches in ODIs. She won 29 of her 50 ODIs as captain, and half of her 30 T20Is. She led South Africa to the World Cup semifinal in July 2017 and to the T20 version in March 2020. She played 193 white-ball internationals and one Test in a career that started in March 2009.

But Van Niekerk didn’t play for South Africa after September 2021. She fractured her ankle in a fall at home in January last year, put on weight during her downtime, and was ruled out of the T20 World Cup in February because she failed CSA’s stringently applied fitness test — she was 18 seconds too slow in her two-kilometre run. Her axing divided opinion in the game in South Africa and beyond. In an interview with Cricbuzz’ Purnima Malhotra published on Monday, Van Niekerk admitted that she had succumbed to “20,000 beers and KFC for no particular reason” while she was away from the game. It would have been bittersweet for her that South Africa reached their first senior World Cup final, by a women’s or a men’s team, in her absence: Suné Luus was in charge of the side that went down to Australia by 19 runs at Newlands on February 26.

“We are merely custodians of this sport; I hand it over knowing I have given it my everything and that women’s cricket is in a better place than when I arrived,” Van Niekerk was quoted as saying in a CSA release on Thursday. “That must be the responsibility of the new group, to always make sure you are improving and making a difference. It is time for me to support the new leadership and wish them all the very best.

“To my amazing family. Thank you for your incredible love and support. From the age of four, you have seen the potential and did everything and anything to help me exceed. I will forever be grateful.

“My wife, Marizanne, you stood by my side since day one. Thank you for putting up with me and all that came with it, but yet, here you are. You are at the pinnacle of your career and it is my time to support you, the way you have supported me. I love you.”

Van Niekerk is in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s squad but has not played in any of the WPL team’s six games. Kapp has appeared in all six of Delhi Capitals’ matches.

“My heart breaks for you. You deserve so much better,” Kapp posted on social media on Thursday.

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Talking, and playing, about cricket’s revolution

“You’re just like the other players, but it’s the pressure and responsibility you have to live with.” – Temba Bavuma on captaincy.

Telford Vice / Johannesburg

THE revolution came to Centurion on Thursday. It arrived before tea on the third and what turned out to be the last day of the first Test, and had moved on before South Africa beat West Indies an hour after the interval.

The revolution had a name. Or rather, names. Some of them were Tazmin Brits, Sinalo Jafta, Ayabonga Khaka, Nonkululeko Mlaba, Laura Wolvaardt and Ayabonga Khaka — members of the South Africa squad who are the only team from their country to reach a senior World Cup final; the T20 version, which Australia won by 19 runs at Newlands on Sunday.

This was revolutionary because the players had been brought to Centurion to try and drum up support for a men’s Test that had drawn but a sprinkling of fans. They signed autographs during tea for a queue formed by almost every spectator in the ground. That the match did not reach a fourth day saved the provincial union, Northerns, around R1-million, or USD55,000, in losses.

Not long ago women’s cricket was purely a developmental exercise in South Africa. It still doesn’t make money, but there is no doubt it has arrived in the national consciousness as a powerful and positive entity. Fans were charged just R30 — less than USD2 — to get into a T20 World Cup game, but it told its own story that a total of 69,914 turned up despite entry to women’s matches in South Africa having previously always been free of charge.

The women’s leap to prominence comes at a challenging time for their male counterparts. A few months ago South Africa’s men were on course to reach the WTC final and their direct qualification for this year’s ODI World Cup seemed assured. Now they are not going to the final and their World Cup path could well have to pass through a qualifier in Zimbabwe.

They have new coaches in Shukri Conrad and Rob Walter, while Temba Bavuma has replaced Dean Elgar as Test captain and relinquished the T20I leadership. Winning will keep questions at bay, but it’s at times like these that the cricketminded public need honesty and clarity. Are they getting it?

In some senses, yes. Here’s Bavuma on Thursday when he was asked why he took guard when South Africa’s second wicket fell with what turned out to be only 17 balls left in the Wednesday’s play: “That was the coach’s [Conrad’s] rule. From now on there’s not going to be any nightwatchman.” Even though Bavuma and Keegan Petersen were dismissed before the close that day, that’s honest and clear enough.

On February 17 Conrad made no bones about his reasons for reselecting Aiden Markram, who had been dropped for the Test series in Australia in December and January after going 15 innings without reaching 50: “People are always going to be behind Aiden Markram or they are going to say he flatters to deceive. I’m in the former group.” That’s also honest and clear, and Markram more than justified Conrad’s faith in him by scoring 115 and 47.

Kagiso Rabada saw in Markram’s performance a shining example of the bullish brand of cricket Conrad espouses: “The way that Aiden played — extremely positive, he had extremely good body positions — paid off for him. He is in form but he’s always looking to be positive. That’s the way he plays. But positive doesn’t doesn’t mean he was striking at 80 or 100. Positive means going out there and having a solid gameplan to be as effective as possible.

“Every individual is different. You can’t have every individual playing the same way, but if I look at Aiden and the way that he played, he was true to himself. The word positive is an encouragement to be yourself and to get the best out of yourself. Because, at the end of the day, cricket is an individual sport. Players have come this far playing the way that they play. You can’t expect Keegan [Petersen] to start playing like Aiden, but you can expect him to be positive and trust his gameplan for it to be as effective as possible.”

But matters can be less straightforward. For instance, picking Senuran Muthusamy ahead of Keshav Maharaj needed explaining. “Our plan was to go with seven batters, hence ‘Sen’ came in at No. 7 instead of ‘Kesh’,” Bavuma said. “We didn’t expect it to offer much spin, which was proven over the three days.”

The pitch favoured seam throughout, so Muthusamy bowled only eight of the 69 overs South Africa sent down in the first innings and none of the 41 in the second dig. It’s doubtful Maharaj would have played a bigger role, and Muthusamy’s non-Test first-class batting average of 30.91 is significantly better enough than Maharaj’s 22.87 for him to crack the nod on the terms stated.

But Muthusamy is no Ryan Rickelton, who averages 57.02 and has scored three centuries in his last four innings in first-class cricket that is not played at Test level. Why he was not selected as the extra batter appears to be tied to the fact that the gritty Petersen, who also missed the tour to Australia, but because of a hamstring injury, was picked as South Africa’s No. 5.

“Keegan has been an important player for us,” Bavuma said. “He’s come into the team batting out of position at No. 3. No. 5 has always been his position. You want to give a guy that opportunity in the position that he prefers.”

Bavuma is correct in that Petersen has been a vital steadying influence in a shaky batting line-up, scoring four half-centuries in 20 innings on mostly difficult pitches. But only 17 of Petersen’s 204 innings have been at No. 5. He made his debut in that position but by his fourth first-class match he was batting at No. 3 — where he has spent most of his career, including all of the 18 trips he made to the Test crease before Centurion. Before Centurion, Petersen last batted at No. 5 in December 2018, or 70 innings ago. To call him a career No. 5 is simply not true.

As for Rickelton, Bavuma said: “Ryan is bringing in the runs. Sometimes those things happen. You don’t always get an opportunity when you are doing well. You get an opportunity when you’re not doing well. With Ryan, he needs to keep his head down and, as he’s doing, keep putting in the work, and when the opportunity comes make sure he’s mentally ready for it.”

Tony de Zorzi topped the averages and was the leading run-scorer in domestic first-class matches going into the round of games that ended on Wednesday. He made scored 163 and 304 not out in his second and third innings of the season, but then scored nine, 13 and 18 in his only other first-class matches of the season before earning a Test debut at Centurion, where he batted at No. 3 and made 28 and suffered a first-baller. Maybe that’s what Bavuma meant about being given a chance when your form has faded.

South Africa’s new captain will learn that leading a Test team is more complicated than doing the job in white-ball cricket, and that if you keep winning you buy time and space to tighten the nuts and bolts and clear the hurdles as you go.

“On the bowling front we ticked a lot of boxes,” Bavuma said about the Centurion performance. “The guys ran in with aggression, and brought a high level of intensity and skill. With the batting there’s definitely room for us to improve. We need to keep challenging ourselves to keep improving. People always look at the batting to try to understand what kind of cricket you’re trying to play. We know we have that responsibility as batters.”

Bavuma himself lasted just three deliveries in both innings, suffered the only golden duck of his career, and scored no runs. He was nothing like the rock of South Africa’s middle order he has been for most of his career.

“When you’re a leader it’s important to stick to your leadership bargain,” he said. “But what can’t be forgotten is that as a batter or bowler your currency remains runs or wickets. You have to make sure you look after those departments and fix things as and when it’s required. However, people need to understand that we’re also human, because you’re not always going to get wickets and runs. You’re just like the other players, but it’s the pressure and responsibility you have to live with.”

Bavuma knows all about pressure and responsibility, and honesty and clarity. He also knows he will find out far more as his tenure unfolds.

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Is it the SA20 bird? Is it the T20 World Cup plane? No. It’s a Test …

Welcome to the dead rubber series.

Telford Vice / Johannesburg

DO not adjust your television set, cricketminded South Africans. Clearly, that isn’t the unbridled razzmatazz of the SA20 you see before you, nor the hope that rose during South Africa’s men’s ODI against England, nor the tide of pride and passion that swept the country during the women’s T20 World Cup.

What will be on your screens from Tuesday will look lacklustre and seem slow in comparison to the carnival of cricket that has kept the country tuned in this summer. But it is big cricket nonetheless. Sort of.

South Africa’s Test series against West Indies that starts in Centurion on Tuesday amounts to two dead rubbers — there are no WTC points on offer — that will be the only Tests the home side will play until December. If there is any reason to care, it’s that the South Africans have a new captain in Temba Bavuma and a new coach, Shukri Conrad. A lower key start to their tenures is difficult to imagine.

But, considering South Africa’s Test team suffered a 2-0 hiding in Australia in December and January, which followed a 2-1 crash in England in July and August, staying under the radar for now may be no bad thing.

“We didn’t meet those challenges, but the guys are still here and they still want to man up,” Temba Bavuma told reporters in Centurion on Monday. But he balked at having what happened in Australia described as traumatic: “No-one died. We got a good beating. There were lessons. The thing is not to hold onto that baggage for too long. At some point you’ve got to move on from it.

“We’d like to start with a clean slate, and go out there and play the way we’d like to play. You’re going to hear me say that a lot.”

South Africa’s squad includes Aiden Markram, who was dropped for the Australia series, Keegan Petersen, who returns from a hamstring injury, and the uncapped Tony de Zorzi and Gerald Coetzee. Sarel Erwee, Rassie van der Dussen, Kyle Verreynne and Lungi Ngidi have been dropped. Mark Boucher left as coach in November and Dean Elgar’s sacking as captain was announced on February 17. Had anything else changed?

“It’s different in the sense that the language has been different,” Bavuma said. “Players are challenging each other in terms of how they want to do things. That hasn’t necessarily come in because there was a problem or it wasn’t being done in the past. It’s just part of a fresh start, and how we would like to measure up as players.”

Bavuma’s opponents in his first series as Test captain have been central to his career from a young age: “West Indies was the team I supported growing up. That was the team I always saw at home on the TV, and my uncles supported them. Making my captaincy debut against them, I guess that’s just another part of the Temba story.”

But that Windies side, with its swagger and success, is a long way from the modern version. They still have the swagger. The success, not so much. They last won a Test in South Africa in December 2007, and last year their runrate of 2.71 was the worst in the game.

Or, as Bavuma, the epitome of politeness, said: “They play old-fashioned cricket. Their batters grind it out, their bowlers are looking to hit their areas outside the off-stump. They’ve got guys who can stand up to the challenge and they are well led by [Kraigg] Brathwaite.”

Not that the South Africans have much reason to feel superior. Their runrate in 2022, a creaky 2.95, was second from bottom. Unsurprisingly, revitalised England led the way with 4.36. India, Australia, New Zealand and Sri Lanka were the only other teams to score more than three runs an over.

South Africa’s men’s teams need to buck up. They have always been CSA’s priority because they are the chief generators of revenue for the game in this country. That is unlikely to change soon because cricket’s primary audience remains men, who prefer watching men play. But the women’s team boldly went where the men have never tread by reaching Sunday’s T20 World Cup final at Newlands. They lost to Australia, but not in the catastrophic fashion that almost always befalls the men when they have to perform under pressure.

Still, Bavuma could appreciate the women’s feat: “That was massive, not just for us but for the nation. All the guys watched the final and the semifinal, and supported them. We look for areas to draw energy and inspiration from, and it’s been big what the women’s team have been able to achieve with limited resources.”

The begged questions were not asked: why don’t the men put their lion’s share of funding and attention from CSA to use as well as the women do with their smaller share, and how is it fair that they should enjoy more of those resources when the women are more successful?

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