Tag: Pieter Malan

Titans triumph in tight title race

“This was the most competitive long-format series in the history of our domestic structure.” – Pholetsi Moseki, CSA acting chief executive

Telford Vice | Cape Town

HOW big is 7.42 points in a soup of hundreds? Big enough to decide the champions of South Africa’s 2021/22 first-class competition. The Titans topped the standings by that margin when the last round of fixtures ended on Monday.

But, as late as Sunday evening, they were in third place. The leaders were the Warriors, who were a sliver of 0.44 points ahead of the Lions, with the Titans a further 2.14 adrift. As CSA acting chief executive Pholetsi Moseki was quoted as saying in a release on Tuesday: “This was the most competitive long-format series in the history of our domestic structure, with the teams fighting till the very last day of the series for the title.”

What happened between Sunday evening and Monday afternoon? Essentially, the Titans beat the Lions in Centurion and the Knights and Warriors drew in Bloemfontein. But there was more to it than that.

The Titans took the Lions’ six remaining wickets for 143 runs and then knocked off their nominal target of 62 to win by seven wickets. Central to that drama was Simon Harmer, who bowled more than a third of the overs the Lions faced in the match and took 6/84 in the second innings to finish the game with 9/168. The off-spinner’s sizzling summer haul of 44 wickets at 19.29 made him the competition’s leading bowler.

Mitchell van Buuren’s 103 not out had steadied the Lions’ first innings of 270. The Titans replied with 482, an advantage of 212, with Theunis de Bruyn scoring 143 and seamer Codi Yusuf taking 5/91. Van Buuren was also the Lions’ lynchpin in the second innings, in which he made 107.

In the other key fixture, in Bloem, — and based on Sunday evening’s scenario — victory for the Warriors would have seen them secure the title regardless of results elsewhere. Draws in Centurion and Bloemfontein would also have made the Warriors champions. Had the Lions won and the Warriors not, the Lions would have finished on top. If the Titans and Lions drew and the Knights won, the Lions also would have triumphed.

Rain prevented any play in Bloem on Sunday, so the visitors went into all or nothing mode and declared on their overnight score, which left them 61 runs behind. They had reduced the Knights to 82/8 in their second innings — a lead of 143 — when hands were shaken on the draw. Medium pacer Mthiwekhaya Nabe took 4/26 to finish the match with 7/71.

Patrick Botha’s 123 had served the Knights well in their first innings of 227, in which left-arm fast bowler Tiaan van Vuuren claimed 4/46. The Warriors slipped to 67/3 inside 20 overs before Rudi Second and Diego Rosier scored half-centuries in an unbroken stand of 99 that took them to what turned out to be their declaration total.

As for the also rans in the first division, Western Province beat North West by an innings and 132 runs at Newlands, and Boland and the Dolphins drew in Paarl.

Medium pacer Delano Potgieter had WP captain Tony de Zorzi caught behind in the fourth over of the Cape Town match with a solitary run on the board. But 128 by De Zorzi’s opening partner, Jonathan Bird, and 153 by Daniel Smith helped the home side total 576 despite Potgieter taking 6/87. George Linde claimed 5/69 and Kyle Simmonds, also a left-arm spinner, 4/24 as North West slumped to 202 all out. They followed on 374 behind and were dismissed for 242. No. 4 Senuran Muthusamy was last out for 101.

In the winelands, Keegan Petersen made 123 and Andile Phehlukwayo 107, and fast bowler Achille Cloete and leg spinner Shaun von Berg shared six wickets, in the Dolphins’ first innings of 422. Pieter Malan’s undefeated 219 — which confirmed him as the season’s leading batter with 601 runs at 120.20 in seven innings — allowed Boland to declare at 422/8. Fast bowler Eathan Bosch and off-spinner Prenelan Subrayen took three wickets each.

Northern Cape finished on top of the second division by winning three of their six matches and losing one. The leaders in the promotion-relegation standings after the 2022/23 season will move up to the top tier at the expense of the bottom team in the first division. Currently, the Knights are that team.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Does the A team plan come together?

“I sat in a South Africa A changeroom telling everyone this is the next-best XI. There was an injury in the Test team not a week later and no-one got the call-up.” – Stephen Cook

Telford Vice | Cape Town

Cricket is famously big on numbers. Think of a novel way of crunching them and some accountant in pads probably has been there, done that and plugged the equation into the game’s grand statosphere. But here’s one that will no doubt dip below the radar. And it features a century, no less.

When South Africa A next take the field in a first-class match, they will do so for the 100th time. Of the flood of facts cricket sends our way, that is sure to wash past us unnoticed. Who could care that a team few beyond the players and their coaches and parents think about will bring up a century of games?

Jimmy Cook, for a start. Aged 40, he captained South Africa A in the first of those 99 matches, against England A at St George’s Park in January 1994. The home side included Mickey Arthur and Eric Simons, and they faced Darren Gough and Peter Such. Here’s how Cook recalled the occasion in conversation with Cricbuzz: “I played one game [for South Africa A]. It was against England … or perhaps England A, or something like that. Down in PE [Gqeberha]. It was later in my career, and they probably wanted one or two experienced guys to go with the youngsters.”

Many would forgive Cook his fuzzy memory. In 1994, no-one quite knew what to do with this strange new thing called A team cricket. Was it a reward for stalwart servants of the game who had never cracked it at the highest level? Was it a testing ground for the next generation of internationals that offered something they couldn’t experience in domestic competition? Why was it called A team cricket when, clearly, it was played by B teams?

Almost 28 years on, not a lot would seem to have changed. On Thursday the A teams of South Africa and India completed a series of three four-day matches in Bloemfontein. The games weren’t on television — they were streamed online — and garnered scant media coverage. Without trying to be nasty to Bloem, a small, sleepy city deep in the belly of South Africa’s inland plateau, not many people there would have noticed if something was or wasn’t happening at the local cricket ground.

It didn’t help that all of the matches were drawn, and not in interesting ways. The first, when rain prevented any play on the fourth day, never reached the third innings. The Indians chased targets in the last two games, but neither side challenged for victory. Pieter Malan, Tony de Zorzi, Zubayr Hamza and Abhimanyu Easwaran scored centuries, and Lutho Sipamla claimed the only five-wicket haul. What, exactly, was the point?

“You can bring in younger guys, and if you have a South Africa batsman who’s out of form he can play in those types of games,” Cook said. “It’s probably a slightly higher standard than you would have in a provincial game, especially when the international players are not involved in the domestic stuff. It’s a worthwhile thing to have.”

To make his point, Cook recalled his initial glimpse of Aiden Markram: “I remember going to watch Stephen [Cook, his son] play for South Africa A, and that’s where I saw Markram bat for the first time. I said to Stephen, ‘This oke [bloke] has got South Africa written all over him.’ That was a valuable introduction for him. He could play at a slightly higher level and get used to it, and then come into the Test team and play so well.”

Cook the younger might want to have a word with his father about that. He and Markram opened the batting for South Africa A in two matches against India A in Potchefstroom in August 2017. Cook made 98 and 70 in the first game, and 120 and 32 in the second. Markram outscored him only once in efforts of 74, 19, 22 and 79.

Stephen Cook, who retired with 11 Test caps, played nine first-class matches for South Africa A between August 2010 and August 2017. He captained them in four of them. What changed in the 16 years between his father turning out for ostensibly the country’s second XI near the end of a career laden with runs, and him following in those footsteps as a 27-year-old still making his way?  

“In South Africa, we’ve used the A side in different ways,” Stephen Cook told Cricbuzz. “At certain stages it’s been very much a developmental team and at other times it’s been a next-best XI. At times it’s flip-flopped between the two, and that’s probably led to people asking how good is the standard. Are those the figures and the performances we should be looking at? Are those the guys next in line?

“From a player’s point of view, being clear on what type of side is being selected is very important. Arguably, at times it has led to more frustration than anything else. I remember sitting in a South Africa A changeroom telling everyone this is the next-best XI, that we were the next cab off the rank. Lo and behold, there was an injury in the Test team not even a week later and no-one from the A team got the call-up. In that era it lost a lot of credibility as a next-best scenario, but now it plays a bigger role. Maybe that’s because of the bigger squads due to Covid, and we need to know the depth of what we’ve got. So I think our A team structures have been better in recent years.”

He felt the increased frequency with which the A teams of South Africa, India and Australia have played each other in recent years during their shared off-season was important, as was going on tour with an A side: “It’s really positive when you go and play in different conditions. The away series hold double the weight. In [August] 2010 I had three weeks in Sri Lanka. Playing in hot, sticky conditions on those turning wickets was great for my career development. We had a series in Australia [in July and August 2016], mainly to play pink-ball cricket.”

His spell in Sri Lanka came almost six years before his Test debut in January 2016, but the Australian experience paid prompt dividends: he scored 40 and 104 in a day/night Test in Adelaide in November 2016.

Relevance, Stephen Cook said, was key: “If you set up a purpose and there’s a reason behind it, then it’s fantastic. When there’s a feeling that we’re obliged to play an A side in the winter, then it can lose its lustre. That’s the danger. You need to make sure there’s something behind that cap.” Happily, there was in the South Africa-India A series, what with the start of the Test series between those teams looming in Centurion on December 26.

India’s home Tests against New Zealand coincided with the A rubber in South Africa. Consequently, the only member of the A squad who will stay on for the Tests is Hanuma Vihari. He played the last of his dozen Tests in January, and made a decent case for a recall by scoring 227 runs at 75.66 in his five innings in Bloem.

South Africa have been idle since their ill-fated ODI home series against the Netherlands, which started and ended — for Covid reasons — on November 26. Their Test team last played in June, and their most recent match in the format at home was in January, when the captain was still Quinton de Kock. Division one sides have played four rounds of matches in this season’s domestic first-class competition, but it won’t hurt Dean Elgar’s and Mark Boucher’s chances of getting their heads around what it will take to beat India that Sarel Erwee, Beuran Hendricks, Marco Jansen, George Linde, Glenton Stuurman and Prenelan Subrayen — who were all busy in Bloem — are in the Test squad.

The more cricket, the better. Even if, sometimes, it can seem pointless. Maybe that’s what A teams are all about.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Six strikes for Sipamla, Jansen, Magala

Lions, Knights bank big wins.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

A week after batters asserted their dominance in South Africa’s first-class scene, fast bowlers reclaimed superiority. And all in one match played on what is usually among the country’s slowest surfaces.

Khaya Zondo and Janneman Malan scored double centuries in the opening round of fixtures. A week on, Lutho Sipamla, Marco Jansen and Sisanda Magala each took six wickets in an innings in the Warriors’ Division 1 match against the Lions at St George’s Park.

Sipamla swung the wrecking ball first, claiming 6/34 in the Warriors’ total of 96. Having chosen to bat despite the green glint of the pitch, they were shot out in 49 overs in an innings in which seven players made fewer than the extras tally of five.

The Lions fared better in their reply of 170, but they should have made more considering Joshua Richards and Dominic Hendricks shared an opening stand of 73. Left-armer Jansen’s haul of 6/38 had much to do with the crash of 10/97 in just more than two hours.

The Warriors began their second dig 74 runs behind, but their hopes of at least making the visitors bat again plummeted when they shambled to 5/16 inside the first hour of that innings. Magala reaped 6/30 in a catastrophic total of 54 — sealing victory by an innings and 20 for the Lions. This time only one player made more than the 10 extras, and only just: Magala bowled Sinethemba Qeshile for 11.

Sipamla started the slide by dismissing Edward Moore in the fourth over. That was his only wicket of the innings, but he went for just five runs in four overs. Oddly, given the seamers’ success, Duanne Olivier couldn’t take more than 4/42 in the 29 overs he bowled in the match.  

The Knights beat North West by 10 wickets in a Division 1 clash in Potchefstroom, where Pite van Biljon scored 127 and put on 234 with Patrick Kruger, who was marooned on 192 not out when Mbulelo Budaza was run out to end the visitors’ first innings with nine wickets down — Nealan van Heerden was absent injured — at 418. Budaza, a left-arm fast bowler, made amends by taking 4/64 in North West’s reply of 237, in which seamer Kruger claimed 3/12 from 4.2 overs. 

The home side followed on, and were bowled out for 197 with fast bowler Gerald Coetzer capturing 4/47. The Knights took care of their target of 17 in the space of 13 balls.

Boland and Western Province drew in Paarl, with Malan coming back to earth with a bump: having made an undefeated 200 in his previous innings, he had his stumps nailed for a six-ball duck by fast bowler Mihlali Mpongwana — who took 5/39. Malan’s brother, opener Pieter Malan, scored 96. Opener Tony de Zorzi’s 129 and Zubayr Hamza’s 94 — and their second-wicket stand of 170 — helped WP reply with 444 in which Shaun von Berg, the leg spinner who took the new ball for Boland, claimed 5/119. There were 117 more runs, not out, for Pieter Malan in the home side’s second innings of 269/4. Malan and Isma-eel Gafieldien put on 113 for the first wicket.  

Another draw unfolded in the Division 1 game between the Titans and the Dolphins in Centurion. Jordan Hermann’s 112 and half-centuries by Neil Brand, Jiveshan Pillay and Corbin Bosch took the Titans to a first innings of 424. Fast bowlers Daryn Dupavillon and Kerwin Mungroo took four wickets each. Sarel Erwee’s 163 and 50s by his opening partner, Bryce Parsons — they put on 164 — and Jason Smith helped the Dolphins reply with 433. Off-spinner Simon Harmer toiled for 35 overs for his 4/106. The home side were 126/1 in their second innings, thanks to half-centuries by openers Brand and Mokoena and their stand of 125, at stumps on Sunday. Monday’s play was washed out.

In Division 2, Northern Cape beat KwaZulu-Natal Inland by 130 runs in Kimberley, Easterns and Limpopo drew in Benoni, as did South Western Districts and Mpumalanga in Oudtshoorn, where the first day was lost to rain. Opener Ernest Kemm scored 121 in Northern Cape’s second innings, and off-spinner Aubrey Swanepoel took 6/42 in KZN Inland’s second dig. Musawenkosi Twala made 124 in Easterns’ first innings, while Thomas Hobson’s 102 bolstered Limpopo’s reply. Openers Yaseen Valli and Blayde Capell scored half-centuries in both innings for SWD. Matches involving Limpopo and Mpumalanga are not first-class. 

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Domestic bliss or bother in 2021/22

15 into nine? Where be Dragons? Will Boland be WP’s noisy neighbours?

Telford Vice | Cape Town

DON’T look now, cricketminded South Africans, but the domestic season is upon us. You weren’t planning on looking? More’s the pity. Because the summer of 2021/22 could spark the change the game in this country so desperately needs. Or not.

For the past 17 seasons South Africa’s major competitions have been contested by six franchise teams, which were cobbled together from the 11 provincial unions that had previously represented the highest domestic level. Cricket will go back to the future on Friday with a T20 knockout tournament that will involve 15 provincial teams and the national under-19 side.

This season’s first-class and one-day competitions will feature the 15 provincial sides — split into two divisions — while the resurrected Mzansi Super League (MSL) will be restricted to the eight teams in the top division: Boland, Eastern Province, Free State, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) Coastal, North West, Northerns and Western Province (WP). The second division will comprise Border, Easterns, KZN Inland, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and South Western Districts (SWD). With the exceptions of Boland and North West, the top tier mirrors the bigger partners in the franchises that have been dissolved — things have, largely, stayed the same. And they will do for two seasons: the promotion and relegation component of the new structure won’t come into effect until after the 2023/24 campaign. 

But, this being South Africa, it’s not as simple as that. For one thing, 11 of the 21 second-division four-day matches will not be recognised as first-class. These games involve Limpopo or Mpumalanga, who have each played only eight matches at that level and none since 2006/07. For another thing, the country has, in geopolitical terms, nine provinces. How do we get from nine provinces to 15 provincial teams? By cramming the provinces with more than one team. The Western Cape is home to WP, Boland and SWD; Gauteng to Gauteng, Northerns and Easterns; KZN to the Coastal and Inland sides, and the Eastern Cape to Eastern Province (EP) and Border. Only Free State, Limpopo, Mpumalanga, Northern Cape and North West — the least populated provinces — have one team each.

That’s not the end of the complications. Some of those sides have opted to keep the names of the franchises of which they used to be part. Gauteng will play as the Lions, Northerns as the Titans, KZN Coastal as the Dolphins, Free State as the Knights and EP as the Warriors.

Other teams have invented new monikers. Boland would prefer to be known as the Rocks, Border as the Iinyathi, Easterns as the Storm, KZN Inland as the Tuskers, Limpopo as the Impalas, Northern Cape as the Heat, North West as the Dragons, and Mpumalanga as the Rhinos.

Only SWD and WP will be dear old SWD and WP — the former because a competition that the provincial board ran in the community to come up with a snappy name didn’t yield the desired result, and the latter chiefly because the feeling at Newlands is that WP is a strong enough identity. Indeed, some among the suits believe the Cobras brand, which the union was part of, detracted from what is represented by WP.

It’s a decent argument, and it asks an important question: the public didn’t warm to the teams created for the franchise era, so why do some unions want to retain the mostly uneasy memory of entities that no longer exist? And why have most of the other unions dreamt up other fake names when cricket has proved to itself that loyalty cannot be conjured by marketing departments? Didn’t those guilty of both these blunders get the memo that the franchises failed, not least because they represented nothing and no-one beyond logos? Little wonder ever fewer cricketminded South Africans notice when the domestic season comes around.  

Even so, some of the new branding makes sense. The Rocks echo the success that the Boland-based Paarl Rocks earned by winning the 2019 MSL; Iinyathi is the isiXhosa word for buffalo, a well-known emblem in the Border region; spectacular electrical storms are common in summer in Benoni, Easterns’ home; and it is indeed oppressively hot in Kimberley, where Northern Cape play.

But why not call yourself what you are, if only to avoid confusing your supporters? Those keeping tabs on KZN Inland, Limpopo, Mpumalanga and North West would be forgiven for skipping straight past reports and scorecards of matches played by the Tuskers, Impalas, Rhinos and Dragons. You could remedy the situation, but only by spending a lot of marketing money that smaller unions — and all of those immediately above are small — don’t have. 

For all that, there is reason to be hopeful that cricket in South Africa is on the verge of an age of repair and improvement after years of neglect and damage. Weird names aside, the teams will represent real regions and their people. There will be more opportunities for players to catch the national selectors’ eyes, even if the focus stays firmly on the first division. More matches, in every format, will be broadcast on television, albeit not on the free-to-air service. Viewers will have the option of commentary in isiXhosa, the first language of many more South Africans — and therefore of many more South African cricketers — than those whose mother tongue is English or Afrikaans. Stand by, isiXhosa speakers, for the delight of the views of Makhaya Ntini, Mfuneko Ngam and Monde Zondeki unfiltered through English. 

There will be concern that the changes haven’t been enough to retain the services of Hashim Amla and Vernon Philander, who were to have played for WP. Philander will be Pakistan’s bowling coach for the T20 World Cup while Amla, who played for Surrey this winter, hasn’t announced plans for the summer. 

But there will also be keen interest in whether erstwhile minnows Boland become WP’s noisy neighbours under new coach Adrian Birrell, especially with Kolpak returnees Stiaan van Zyl, Hardus Viljoen and Kyle Abbott on their books and Janneman and Pieter Malan having signed on.

North West have done well to secure the services of Dwaine Pretorius and Heino Kuhn, and the spotlight will be on another Kolpak couple, Duanne Olivier and Simon Harmer, at Gauteng and Northerns.

No-one can say whether the restructure will have the desired outcome of a healthier domestic system and thus a stronger international set-up. But, for the first time in 18 seasons, cricket in South Africa will look itself in the eye and see who and what it really is. That is a precious commodity without which no real progress can be made. Without reality, dreams can’t come true.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Freshly fanged Cobras help Titans reach final against Dolphins

Pieter Malan makes highest score in the history of the Cape franchise, who record their biggest win; Aiden Markram evokes Barry Richards.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

TO the Dolphins and the Titans will go the distinction of playing the last match in this era of cricket in South Africa. The teams will clash in the first-class final at Kingsmead on Thursday, ending the domestic season — and bringing the curtain down on the six-team franchise model that has been the country’s highest level of domestic cricket since 2004/05. From next summer South Africa will revert to a 15-team provincial model.

The Dolphins booked their place in the final by beating the Warriors by seven wickets at St George’s Park in the last round of league matches, which ended on Friday. The Titans, who drew with the Lions at the Wanderers, were confirmed as the Dolphins’ opponents by the result of a remarkable game at Newlands.

The Cobras had been fangless for more than two years — they last won a first-class match in January 2019 — but they unsheathed a pair of the sharpest against the Knights, who went into the game having lost only two of their previous six games and as contenders for a place in the final. The visitors’ chances were dented when Nandre Burger and Tshepo Moreki shared eight wickets in the visitors’ first innings of 181. The Cobras batted until before tea on the third day before declaring at 523/8. Pieter Malan’s 264 was his career-best score and the highest in the Cobras’ history. He put on 219 with Zubayr Hamza, who made 86, and 217 with Kyle Verreynne, who scored 109. Kept in the field for 176.3 overs, the Knights lasted only 63.2 overs at the crease. They were dismissed for 127 — their last nine wickets fell for 77 — to seal victory for the Cobras by an innings and 215 runs, the Cape side’s biggest triumph. George Linde, who went wicketless in the first innings, took a career-best 7/29. 

The Dolphins rumbled the Warriors for 124 in Port Elizabeth with Eathan Bosch taking 3/18 and Kerwin Mungroo, Ruan de Swardt and Keshav Maharaj claiming two wickets each. Senuran Muthusamy’s 52, Khaya Zondo’s 111 and Maharaj’s 66 powered the Dolphins’ reply of 358. They lost 5/87 before Zondo and Maharaj added 132 for the eighth wicket. Eddie Moore, who scored 155, and Gihahn Cloete, who made 65, put the Warriors on the path to better things with an opening stand of 145. Then Moore and Yaseen Vallie shared 100 for the second wicket. But the end of that stand, when Maharaj had Vallie stumped, was where it all started going wrong for the home side, who lost their last nine wickets for 100 and were dismissed for 345. Maharaj took 6/93, his third five-wicket haul in two matches and his fourth in five games in the competition this season. The Dolphins needed 112 to win, and Muthusamy scored 57 of them unbeaten.

The Lions and Titans pulled the plug on their match at tea on the fourth day, when the Titans required 164 to win but had already been confirmed as finalists. Dominic Hendricks’ 99 stuck out in the Lions’ first innings of 206. Hendricks’ dismissal was the start of a slide of 6/51. Opener Aiden Markram was eighth out for 100. And a good thing too for the Titans: Sibonelo Makhanya’s 23 was their next best effort in a total of 202 in which Kagiso Rabada took 5/51 and Lutho Sipamla 5/37. Markram’s century was his fifth of the season in this competition, which put him in a club with Peter Kirsten, Graeme Pollock, HD Ackerman, Dean Elgar and Stephen Cook for the most hundreds in a single senior domestic campaign. The Lions found their roar in their second innings, when they declared at 308/9 after Lizaad Williams had taken 4/74. Having ridden high on the swings, Hendricks found himself on the roundabouts when he was caught behind the single he didn’t score in the first innings. But Ryan Rickleton made 58, Reeza Hendricks 96 and Wiaan Mulder 56 not out to keep the Lions in the hunt. Set 313 to win, the Titans looked up for it while Elgar and Markram were scoring 68 and 64 and sharing 125. They equalled the record for the most century opening stands in senior domestic cricket in South Africa — in 1998/99, Sven Koenig and Adam Bacher also mounted four such partnerships. Markram’s aggregate of 945 runs for the season, at an average of 94.50, left him 55 short of emulating Barry Richards, who topped 1,000 runs in a domestic season in 1971/72 and 1972/73. But Richards had 15 and 16 innings during those summers, compared to Markram’s dozen trips to the crease in 2020/21.

On Thursday the Dolphins will try to clear the last hurdle of a campaign for the only time in three attempts in 2020/21. But it’s the first time this summer that the Lions have not reached a final. Those teams shared the one-day title after that decider was washed out, and the Lions beat the Dolphins in the T20 final.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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No Rabada doesn’t mean no problem for Sri Lanka

Batting on two of the fastest, swingiest pitches in cricket will be easier for the visitors than they might have expected. But not by much.

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

YOU’RE batting at Centurion or the Wanderers. Who’s the last South Africa bowler you want running at you, new ball in hand, old mayhem in mind? Kagiso Rabada, of course. So Sri Lanka will be quietly relieved that Rabada has not recovered from a groin injury in time to be named in the squad to play Tests at those grounds from December 26.

Not so fast. Lungi Ngidi has been picked. As has Anrich Nortjé. Batting on two of the fastest, swingiest pitches in cricket will be easier for the Lankans than they might have expected. But not by much. The home side’s other pace options, Beuran Hendricks, Wiaan Mulder and the uncapped Glenton Stuurman, aren’t anywhere as menacing. That said, they bring other attributes. Hendricks’ left-armness, for instance. And Stuurman’s ability to move the ball both ways.

South Africa’s batting has a more familiar look, with Pieter Malan and Zubayr Hamza the only casualties in that department from the squad that finished the series against England in January. That was Faf du Plessis’ swansong as captain. He remains in the mix, but contrary to earlier indications Quinton de Kock will lead the side until the end of the season — or while the candidates for the position proper, Aiden Markram, Dean Elgar, Temba Bavuma, Rassie van der Dussen and Keshav Maharaj, stake their claims.

Another newbie, Kyle Verreynne, could relieve the burdened De Kock of his wicketkeeping duties. Still another unblooded player in the squad, Sarel Erwee, scored 199 in the opening round of first-class fixtures last month. Markram is the leading run-scorer in that competition, thanks to reeling off centuries in his last three innings. Erwee is only 47 runs behind him, albeit from one more innings.

Allrounder Mulder, a former South Africa under-19 captain and a major talent who has had to recover from too many injuries for someone who will turn 23 in February, has also cracked the nod having scored a century and 91 in five innings in the first-class competition.

Maharaj is the only spinner in the 15, not least because of the venues involved. Only at Centurion and the Wanderers do South Africa’s captains contemplate unleashing all-seam attacks. That brings us to Sri Lanka’s last Test series in the country, in February 2019.

They arrived having won only one of their previous 13 Tests in South Africa, but the narrative was rewritten when they prevailed by one wicket at Kingsmead and by eight wickets at St George’s Park. That made them the first Asian side to claim a Test series here. Again, the clue is in the venues.

Durban and Port Elizabeth harbour the slowest, most Asian surfaces in South Africa. Kingsmead is the scene of Sri Lanka’s only other win in the country — by 208 runs in December 2011, when Rangana Herath took 11/128 — and they drew their other Test there. Sensibly, they had played at St George’s Park just once before, in December 2016 when they were dismissed for 205 and 281 and South Africa won by 206 runs. So the decision to put the Lankans in Durban and Port Elizabeth last year was made either in ignorance or arrogance.

Hence they can expect to be taken more seriously than ever this time. Not only will South Africa have a point to prove, they will not have played Test cricket for 11 months when the Centurion match starts, and they will do so under a new captain and in the brave new world of Covid cricket. There is thus every reason for the South Africans to prove they can do this, especially in the wake of England truncating their white-ball tour over virus fears.

Du Plessis, Bavuma, De Kock, Elgar, Maharaj, Markram and Mulder were in the South Africa squad selected for Sri Lanka’s last Test series here. So were Hashim Amla, Theunis de Bruyn, Duanne Olivier, Vernon Philander, Rabada, Dale Steyn and Hamza, who far various reasons are not around this time.

So much has changed since last February. But it’s still not much fun batting at Centurion or the Wanderers when some of South Africa’s best bowlers are running at you.

South Africa Test squad:

Quinton de Kock (captain), Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram, Faf du Plessis, Beuran Hendricks, Dean Elgar, Keshav Maharaj, Lungi Ngidi, Rassie van der Dussen, Sarel Erwee, Anrich Nortjé, Glenton Stuurman, Wiaan Mulder, Keegan Petersen, Kyle Verreynne. 

First published by Cricbuzz. 

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It’s cricket, South Africa, but not as we knew it

A glint of red leather and gilt foil flashed through the sunlight for a sliver of a magical moment. The season was upon us.

TELFORD VICE | Newlands

SOUTH African cricket’s new normal is suddenly real. Not quite new and far from normal, but real. The opening round of franchise fixtures is underway, and the anxiety about the game returning from its pandemic purgatory is eased, albeit slightly.

In first-class matches that started on Monday, the Cobras are at home to the Titans at the construction site formerly known as Newlands, the perennially soggy biscuit we call Kingsmead hosts the Dolphins and the Lions, and the Warriors go from one sleepy town to another — but leave the Eastern Cape’s ocean behind — to take on the Knights in Bloemfontein.

No perfect summer’s days anywhere are more perfect than Cape Town’s. With Table Mountain basking in the windless sunshine, the trees atop the ground’s only surviving grass bank providing pools of shade, desolate stands all around, and hard hatted builders beyond busy with a major redevelopment, Lizaad Williams glided lithely towards the crease from the Wynberg end cradling the jewel that would become the first delivery of the season.

Williams slipped past the magisterial figure of Marais Erasmus and a twitchy, primed Pieter Malan, before collecting and then unfurling himself. A glint of red leather and gilt foil flashed through the sunlight for a sliver of a magical moment.

At the Kelvin Grove end stood that splendid splinter of a cricketer, Janneman Malan; his back angled but straight as a stump, his head turned and level, his bat cocked. He had, it seemed, been there for as least as long as the mountain. The waiting was over. But maybe Malan needed a nanosecond more. The ball evaded all his elegance and thudded into his pads.

Then it came, the sound some of us had wondered whether we would ever hear again without the help of knob-twiddling wizards in a studio somewhere. It met our ears like the first breath of a new life. An appeal! It was neither half-hearted nor full-throated, but there was enough heart and throat in it to remind us that there is, still, human juice in the too often dry business of cricket. Mr Erasmus was unmoved. Everyone else was unsurprised.

The episode was an apt addition to this time of indecision and fuzzy logic. No knees were taken before the start of play, a fact that will be noted with anger in some quarters, disappointment in others, and admiration in still others. Consternation swelled when it was realised that the usual sources for online scoring on the games were no longer offering that service because CSA had changed data contractors.

The ground was all but empty because coronavirus regulations prohibit crowds, but also because there are so few spectators at first-class matches in South Africa that, for years now, the gates have been thrown open; no tickets required. Or have there been minimal spectators because CSA doesn’t deem its premier domestic competition worth paying money to watch? If they’re giving it away for free it can’t be much good, surely.

Something else has stayed the same: rain washed out the first session in Durban. But things couldn’t have been more different in Bloem, where Jacques Snyman was run out for a 78-ball 109 — the highest score before lunch on the opening day of a first-class match in the country since Lawrence Seeff reached 119 not out at the interval on his way to 156 at Claremont, a posh Cape Town club, in 1978. It wouldn’t have helped the Warriors’ focus that six of their players had to be withdrawn after testing positive for the virus or having contact with someone who has been diagnosed.

Ah yes, that. Issues of which players have gone where, which young guns could shoot the lights out, which beards are turning terminally grey, and which teams might be headed for the title are, for once, moot. None of that matters more than cricket surviving the collision of its twin existential threats — Covid-19 and CSA’s chronic self-destructiveness — and finding its way back onto the field.

The virus and its consequences arch over everything like a vast poisoning parabola. It will be with us long after the strange summer of 2020-21 is a memory. Like every other human pursuit, all the game can do about the pathogen is to take every practical precaution to stop it from spreading.

But how might cricket win a fight against its dirty, diseased self? People elected and appointed to serve the sport who violate that trust and put themselves first deserve nothing but contempt. And dismissal, and possibly prosecution, and a warning never to go anywhere near a committee room or a ground ever again.

Happily, the board has been rooted out. But the members council, which currently includes five of the former directors, lingers still. Some of them were elected after the damage was done, but the new dawn will be cruelly false if cricket is to take any of these flawed figures into its future. 

The unfairness is that these people have tainted by association those in cricket’s less visible avenues who are committed to doing the right thing, and doing it well. The franchises and provinces are hives of hard work and resourcefulness that soldier on despite near desperate financial circumstances. Even in CSA’s offices it is not difficult to find, amid the cynics, the naysayers and the simply crooked, those who do a damn fine job and seem determined to keep doing it, no matter what.

It is they, rather than a smattering of reporters, who deserved to see a moment after lunch at Newlands on Monday. Junior Dala, his shaven head gleaming with sweat under the sun at its hottest, bustled towards the compact, organised Tony de Zorzi. The ball veered at the left-hander through the air then, after pitching, ragged away from him like a ping-pong ball that had caught the edge of the table.

De Zorzi was trapped in a twilight zone. He knew he shouldn’t play the stroke he was playing but couldn’t stop playing it. Heinrich Klaasen caught the ball, and all went up as one, perhaps more in recognition of an excellent delivery than belief that the edge had been found. Not out, said Abdoellah Steenkamp.

Nothing had happened. Yet everything had. Hark, the new normal. 

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Stay off the couch, Boucher warns players

“There’s no sport on TV, so there’s not much TV to watch.” – Mark Boucher reveals apparently limited viewing habits.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

GARAGE? Cleaned. Workout? Done. Now what? For many South Africans, the lockdown forced by the global coronavirus pandemic means finding ways to fill hours that would normally be spent commuting, shopping and socialising. 

Mark Boucher, South Africa’s coach since December, is different from most of his compatriots in many ways. But the virus is nothing if not democratic. “I’ve cleaned up my garage and tried to stay fit,” he said in an audio file released by Cricket South Africa on Tuesday. “I made plans to get away, take the family somewhere and maybe play a bit of golf and go to the bush. That hasn’t been possible. We’re biding our time. I’ve got a just under two-year-old, so he’s been keeping myself and my wife pretty busy running around the place. There’s no sport on TV, so there’s not much TV to watch.”

Maybe Boucher isn’t keen on watching news broadcasts that seem stuck, 24/7, on the only story that matters. South Africa became part of the saga last month when their tour to India, comprising three ODIs, was called off after the first game was washed out because of concerns over the spread of the virus. “That was unfortunate because it would have been nice to judge ourselves, as a young side, against [India],” Boucher said.

But he and his players count themselves among the more fortunate members of the worldwide cricket family: “I don’t think it’s really disrupted our plans. We were quite lucky in the fact that we were always going to be having a break at this time. It may be a chance [for the players] to get rid of a few niggles their bodies have picked up. The key is going to be to rest for the first two or three weeks and refuel yourself mentally as well as physically. We have put in some programmes on how to keep yourself fit and strong around your household. They need to keep their discipline. They will be tested after the lockdown period.”

Boucher said that went not only for those currently in the national squad, but for the “30 or 40” who could be involved at senior and A team level when cricket resumes. There is good reason for him to be taken seriously, what with Sisanda Magala, Jon-Jon Smuts, Tabraiz Shamsi and Lungi Ngidi sent on a camp to improve their conditioning last season. Magala and Smuts were denied chances to play for South Africa because they fell short of the required standard. “Because of all the new fitness clauses we’re going to be putting into contracts, you need to be fit,” Boucher said. “We’ve seen in the recent past that players who aren’t fit enough don’t get selected. Players are professionals and they need to do what they need to do.”

Those who put in the work and perform would be rewarded regardless of any other factors. Boucher has already proved that, with the help of the selectors. Rassie van der Dussen, Dwaine Pretorius, Pieter Malan, Dane Paterson and Beuran Hendricks all made their Test debuts in the series against England, who were also the opponents for the first taste of ODI cricket afforded Smuts, Lutho Sipamla and Bjorn Fortuin. Against Australia, Pite van Biljon made his T20 bow and Janneman Malan, Kyle Verreynne and Daryn Dupavillon all cracked the nod in the ODIs. In age terms the dozen players range from 21-year-old Sipamla to Van Biljon, who is 33.

The steady stream of new personnel needed careful management, as Boucher explained: “You don’t give six or seven youngsters an opportunity. You give one or two of them an opportunity and you get some senior players around them. No senior player in the franchise system is being overlooked. I’m not too worried about age at the moment. If you perform at franchise level you should be able to get a chance if we rest a few players.”

Boucher said his message to players coming into the team was: “You’re going to get given opportunity. We are resting a senior player. It is his position that he holds. So when he does come back, no matter what performances you’ve put in, he rightfully owns that position.”

The results of all that tinkering were mixed. South Africa won seven of their completed matches in 2019-20 and lost their other eight. They went down in the Test and T20 series against England and drew the ODI rubber, and Australia won the T20 series. Going into the ODIs against the Aussies, South Africa had won only four of their dozen completed games. They reeled off a hattrick of successes to soften the blow of what remains a losing campaign.

“It was disappointing, especially against England,” Boucher said. “We didn’t perform like we wanted to. We asked some questions and we got some answers — some good, some bad. We’ve got a lot of work to do with our Test cricket, a lot of rebuilding with our team. The exciting thing for me was to see the guys grow in white-ball cricket. We gave quite a bit of opportunity to youngsters, and they started to gel together as a team and not rely on one guy to carry them through. Our performance against Australia was the light at the end of the tunnel, but there’s still a hell of a lot to do.”

At least, there will be a lot to work on once cricket is again part of Boucher’s reality. “There’s not much you can do as a cricketer. We’re just waiting to see when we can get involved physically. We’ve done enough talking.” 

First published by Cricbuzz.

Giants’ exit marks end of an era

How do you replace Hashim Amla? You don’t. You hope the rest of the batting order can play far enough above themselves to minimise his loss.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

TO everything else that’s being taken away from us at this awful time, add names as household as toothpaste. Hashim Amla and Dale Steyn have been among Cricket South Africa’s centrally contracted players for long enough to serve the national team under the country’s last three presidents. Vernon Philander has one fewer head of state in his collection but he is no less a member of this club of dependables. None were on the list of 16 players CSA announced on Monday for the 2020-21 season.

Philander was originally contracted in January 2012. Amla and Steyn have been on the books since May 2007, and a glance at the rest of that intake puts their stature into perspective: Graeme Smith, Shaun Pollock, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher, Makhaya Ntini, Herschelle Gibbs, AB de Villiers, Boeta Dippenaar, Andrew Hall, Justin Kemp, Charl Langeveldt, André Nel and Ashwell Prince.    

It’s not news that Amla and Philander have called time on their international careers, and that Steyn remains available only for white-ball selection. But those players’ now formalised absence from South Africa’s core group is the stark truth of the end of an era writ ominously large. It wouldn’t loom quite so large and ominous had it not followed the retirements of AB de Villiers and Morné Morkel, which came in the wake of Kyle Abbott going Kolpak. Similarly, were there players to fill the holes that now gape wide, even after a season or two of finding their feet, the situation wouldn’t seem so serious.

Fast bowling prospects have South Africa many, although none that promise to become finished articles of the class of Steyn and Philander. But how, exactly, do you replace Amla? You don’t. You hope the rest of the batting order can play far enough above themselves to minimise his loss. So far, that hasn’t happened. South Africa have lost six of seven Tests since Amla retired. His last seven Tests? They won three, all against Pakistan, and only Quinton de Kock scored more runs for them in that series. That’s not to suggest Amla retired at the top of his game. In those final 14 innings, all but one of them completed, he made 300 runs for an average of 23.08. That’s less than half his career mark of 46.64. For a player who suffered only 13 ducks in his total of 215 innings to have accumulated two of them in his last 14 trips to the crease — one of them his only first-baller — said plenty. Even so he remained to the end a massive presence in a team that struggles to articulate such important intangibles to themselves.

That Faf du Plessis has been retained in the contracted ranks despite relinquishing the captaincy will stoke the ire of his detractors. He attracted an unfairly large amount of the blame, some of it fuelled by race politics, for what went wrong for a team who won only four of the last 16 games they played under his leadership across the formats. It didn’t help that this painful period included last year’s World Cup. De Kock has replaced him as the white-ball skipper, and has won one of his five series. Now for the hard part: finding a Test captain for the rubber in the Caribbean in July and August, if it still happens in these days of coronavirus über alles. The names of Rassie van der Dussen, Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram and De Kock have been mentioned in this discussion. All merit consideration. None is anywhere near as assured and followable a leader as Du Plessis was for most of his time at the helm.

Neither of the Malans, Pieter and Janneman, who made excellent debuts last season, have cracked the contract nod. Zubayr Hamza, Jon-Jon Smuts and Heinrich Klaasen are also still singing — rather than playing — for their supper. They will take heart from Anrich Nortjé, Dwaine Pretorius and Van der Dussen, along with Nadine de Klerk and Sinalo Jafta among the women, all being elevated to that status during the 2019-20 season. They same may happen for them in the coming months. If, that is, there’s cricket to be played. If not, 16 men and 14 women will be paid to keep themselves ready for when the all-clear is given.

The world, nevermind the game, has never known days like these. If they’re good for anything, they might help South Africa get used to the emptiness left behind by giants like Amla, Steyn and Philander. Not forget them, mind, for that will never happen. But, after all this, nothing that isn’t about life and death will matter as much as it did.

First published by Cricbuzz.

A Malan for the ages, and he’s not Pieter or Janneman

In an age of determinedly single-minded cricketers, the reading, writing, thinking André Malan is a ray of hope.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

IF you’re born a Malan in South Africa, prepare to be prominent. World War II Royal Air Force fighter pilot Sailor Malan was a champion of human rights in a society where they remain unachieved thanks to the evil perpetrated by people like DF Malan, the first prime minister of the apartheid state, which went through its death throes while the supreme commander of the armed forces and defence minister was Magnus Malan. Riaan Malan is a mad, bad, dangerous to know writer and musician whose searing 1990 memoir, “My Traitor’s Heart”, remains arguably the best book yet published in this country and unarguably the best dealing with those dark days. If you want to know the truth of living and dying in South Africa then, read it.

Now we have Janneman Malan, smiter of a series-clinching century in Bloemfontein on Wednesday in only his second ODI. His career in the format started in Paarl on Saturday with his toe being crunched in front of his stumps courtesy of a wickedly swinging 143 kilometre-an-hour delivery from Mitchell Starc. That made Malan the only debutant dismissed by the first ball of a game. His evening ended with him limping off the field because of a cramping glute. Pieter Malan, his brother, has given Test cricket a pair of biceps each as big as both of Nathan Bracken’s thighs. That and six hours at the crease on debut against England at Newlands in January for his 84. Then there’s André Malan, still another brother, who has played 50 first-class matches, only one for a franchise rather than a second-tier provincial side. He has scored eight centuries in 80 innings and averages 38.95. His fast bowling has earned him 60 wickets, among them two five-wicket hauls, at 29.10. You mightn’t think that puts André in the league of Janneman and Pieter, much less Malans of the stature of Sailor and Riaan. But, in the early hours of Thursday morning, with the truth of Janneman’s unbeaten 129 shining too brightly to be consigned to memory, André took to social media and offered 1,318 blazing words that began: “No. Those two letters must have made a nest in his mind and haunted him as he went to rest in his hostel bed that night. But deep down he knew the truth. That when he gets his chance he will make the hairs on the back of whoever is fortunate enough to watch him go about his work stand up. He will provide them with so much joy and awe that they, too, will believe in achieving exceptional feats while making it look like a weekend jog around the block. That is what they do, the special ones. They make mere mortals feel invincible. They make them stand up when they are alone at home in front of the television and cheer as if they are there, in the colosseum. They make them go out in the yard and argue who gets to be who in the game that is about to be played. Theatre. Art.”

What was that fateful “No”? Janneman wasn’t originally part of the North West University squad picked to play in a T20 tournament in February 2015, even though he had scored 129 in a franchise cubs game three weeks earlier. By then he also had an undefeated 214 in an under-17 provincial match and 10 half-centuries to show for his 37 innings since the start of his under-13 provincial career. But his disappointment at being overlooked was eased when injury earned him a place in the varsity squad. Still, he had scored only 72 runs in four innings when he walked out with Wihan Lubbe to open the batting in the semi-final against Stellenbosch University. They put on 140 with Lubbe scoring 52 and Malan the last man out, with a ball left in the innings, for 99. He was one of three runout victims in an innings in which none of the other seven players who batted reached double figures. Stellenbosch reeled in their target of 178 with four wickets standing and an over to spare. But three innings later Malan hammered 140 in the national club championships, and less than three weeks after that he made his first century at senior level: 129 not out in a provincial one-day game. A first-class century, 174, came eight months hence. After 65 innings at that level he has scored nine more hundreds and averages 50.36. International prominence awaits.

It’s long since been achieved domestically. December 17, 2016 at Newlands will forever be a special day for the Malan brothers. First Pieter converted his overnight 51 not out into 117 before Western Province’s second innings declaration came. Then, in North West’s search for a target of 351, Janneman made 135 and André 103 not out. Pieter took the catch that snuffed out his brothers’ march toward a century stand at 89.

All three Malans now live in Cape Town. Pieter, the eldest, moved in September 2013 in search of better playing opportunities while Janneman, the youngest, was still at high school. Now André, his wife, Elzane, and Janneman share a house in the winelands.

None of which tells the Malans’ story nearly as well as André: “I met Janneman before he was born. Myself and Pieter incessantly whispered against our mother’s pregnant belly: ‘We are waiting for you. Hurry up so we can get playing.’ When the news came that he was born [in Nelspruit] at a healthy 4.1 kilogrammes we jumped for joy. Growing up he had to start off his backyard playing career by taking cover behind a big tree in our backyard when we were playing our cricket games. He soon got the go ahead from our insanely knowledgeable (about cricket and everything else) mother that he had outgrown the protection of the bark and was able to now fully compete in Suiderkruis Street 64’s sanctioned cricket games. Our youthful and loving father was the groundsman, umpire, first change bowler and sponsor. Janneman, barely five or so, bravely and enthusiastically strutted to the stumps when it was his turn to bat. Barely being able to look over his pads, he confidently asked for middle. Sooner rather than later the only middle at play was of the bat he was holding in his hands.”

As the words of a brother, they are blood rendered in ink. They are also sentiments of support that transcend even so strong a link. And they are damn fine words in their own right: “Here is where the special ones live. On that razor-thin line between order and chaos. Where they have to contend with the dragon of chaos that hoards the gold.”

To think English isn’t his first language. Or even his second. Like his brothers André is a native Afrikaans-speaker, and he grew up with Setswana also in his ears and his mouth. English is thus his third language. He also speaks isiXhosa. An avid reader of mostly non-fiction — “I said to myself if I’m going to read I might as well read something that’s going to help my studies, so I stopped reading fiction” — he enjoys writing about “incidents that transcend the ordinary”. Like his brother’s innings.

In an age of determinedly single-minded cricketers, who seem to only cricket know and, worse, appear uninterested in much else unless it’s going to make them money, André Malan is a ray of hope. He holds a bachelor of commerce degree in industrial psychology and labour relations and an honours in the former. “I’m also registered as a psychometrist. I’m not practising as one yet as I am just focusing on my cricket career for now.” His writing illuminates a keen interest in people, so it’s no surprise that he says, “I hope it humanises cricketers.” Might he consider taking up the pencil professionally? “Perhaps. When someone tells me I’m too old and terrible to contract anymore.” 

He’s 29, so that’s unlikely to happen for a few years yet. But he has a calling when he gives up the foolery of flanneldom: the Malans could use a few more Sailors to steer the family ship away from the wreckage wrought by monsters like Magnus and DF. Go get that dragon.

First published by Cricbuzz.