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Ken Borland



Proteas enter ODI series with mass of expectation on their shoulders 0

Posted on September 13, 2021 by Ken

The Proteas enter an ODI series in Sri Lanka on Thursday and once again there is a mass of expectation on their shoulders as they look to not only win on the field but somehow also win over the hearts of the many people who are deeply dismayed by what has been going on in South African cricket lately.

One can sympathise with captain Temba Bavuma as he looks to juggle all these demands that range from socio-economic issues that plague the country as a whole to how to deal with turning pitches on the subcontinent.

South Africa’s struggles with that are well-known and they have not won an ODI series since beating Australia 18 months ago, which means they are currently outside the top eight in the race to pre-qualify for the next World Cup. And they have not won an ODI series overseas in nearly three years – again it was Australia who succumbed to the Proteas, in November 2018.

“It seems these days whenever we play there’s always something brought up that we haven’t done,” Bavuma lamented on Wednesday. “Our main aim is to win series, to try and accumulate as many points as we can to qualify for the 50-over World Cup, and we are here in foreign conditions and we don’t focus on the past, but we do learn from it. I’ve only been in this role for two series – against Pakistan and the Ireland series that was affected by the weather.

“We still have a lot to overcome as a team, there’s the stuff going on behind closed doors, but our responsibility is to make sure that what we do on the field meets a certain standard. Winning is where our minds are at and our conversations are largely centred around how we can play our best cricket. We don’t need to get involved in external matters,” Bavuma said.

The Proteas are also missing key players in Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Lungi Ngidi. The absence of De Kock means either Aiden Markram or Reeza Hendricks will open the batting with Janneman Malan, with Heinrich Klaasen or Kyle Verreynne taking the gloves; both could play as they did in South Africa’s last ODI, a thumping 70-run win over Ireland that levelled the series.

But there are also empty chairs to be filled in the management room with bowling coach Charl Langeveldt not able to travel due to Covid quarantine and assistant coach Enoch Nkwe having resigned.

“It’s our first tour without Enoch and it’s quite a big loss, especially on the tactical and strategic side. He was a good sounding board for me, someone I could test my ideas with, and we had experience of working together at domestic level. But life goes on and there’s not much we can do about it. As far as his reasons go, as a team we have not heard from Enoch himself.

“There has been a lot of speculation, but I’m sure he’s rooting for us. For it to be said there was something wrong with our team culture and environment, makes me feel … I haven’t had the opportunity for a formal discussion with him, so I would like to sit down and unpack it all with him, hear from him first. I will take what he says on board and discuss it amongst the team,” Bavuma said.

Sympathy for Bavuma as Proteas have mass of expectation to win on & off field 0

Posted on September 01, 2021 by Ken

The Proteas enter an ODI series in Sri Lanka on Thursday and once again there is a mass of expectation on their shoulders as they look to not only win on the field but somehow also win over the hearts of the many people who are deeply dismayed by what has been going on in South African cricket lately.

One can sympathise with captain Temba Bavuma as he looks to juggle all these demands that range from socio-economic issues that plague the country as a whole to how to deal with turning pitches on the subcontinent.

South Africa’s struggles with that are well-known and they have not won an ODI series since beating Australia 18 months ago, which means they are currently outside the top eight in the race to pre-qualify for the next World Cup. And they have not won an ODI series overseas in nearly three years – again it was Australia who succumbed to the Proteas, in November 2018.

“It seems these days whenever we play there’s always something brought up that we haven’t done,” Bavuma lamented on Wednesday. “Our main aim is to win series, to try and accumulate as many points as we can to qualify for the 50-over World Cup, and we are here in foreign conditions and we don’t focus on the past, but we do learn from it. I’ve only been in this role for two series – against Pakistan and the Ireland series that was affected by the weather.

“We still have a lot to overcome as a team, there’s the stuff going on behind closed doors, but our responsibility is to make sure that what we do on the field meets a certain standard. Winning is where our minds are at and our conversations are largely centred around how we can play our best cricket. We don’t need to get involved in external matters,” Bavuma said.

The Proteas are also missing key players in Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Lungi Ngidi. The absence of De Kock means either Aiden Markram or Reeza Hendricks will open the batting with Janneman Malan, with Heinrich Klaasen or Kyle Verreynne taking the gloves; both could play as they did in South Africa’s last ODI, a thumping 70-run win over Ireland that levelled the series.

But there are also empty chairs to be filled in the management room with bowling coach Charl Langeveldt not able to travel due to Covid quarantine and assistant coach Enoch Nkwe having resigned.

“It’s our first tour without Enoch and it’s quite a big loss, especially on the tactical and strategic side. He was a good sounding board for me, someone I could test my ideas with, and we had experience of working together at domestic level. But life goes on and there’s not much we can do about it. As far as his reasons go, as a team we have not heard from Enoch himself.

“There has been a lot of speculation, but I’m sure he’s rooting for us. For it to be said there was something wrong with our team culture and environment, makes me feel … I haven’t had the opportunity for a formal discussion with him, so I would like to sit down and unpack it all with him, hear from him first. I will take what he says on board and discuss it amongst the team,” Bavuma said.

England cricket spluttering after first week of CWC 0

Posted on August 19, 2015 by Ken

 

They’re going to be spluttering into their gin and tonics at the Marylebone Cricket Club after England’s humiliating start to the World Cup, but it’s no more than they deserve after all the boardroom shenanigans that have been going on in the so-called home of the game.

It’s amazing how English cricket has managed to marry such smugness and superiority with such abysmal performances on the field of play, but it makes every hiding they receive in the World Cup even more pleasurable.

I generally don’t enjoy seeing sportsmen humiliated on the field of play, but I’ll make an exception in this case because of the thoroughly distasteful manner in which the England and Wales Cricket Board went to the dodgy lair of Narayanaswami Srinivasan and ingratiated themselves into the so-called “Big Three” that have hijacked the game.

My biggest bone of contention with the Big Three is that they seek to monopolise the game for their own benefit and are actively trying to halt the progress of the up-and-coming Associate nations by removing them from future World Cups. As veteran Ireland opener Ed Joyce pointed out, cricket is the only sport which is trying to contract its World Cup, while every other sport on the planet (yes, even American Football) is trying to expand its reach.

As the ANC, and the National Party before them, are showing so clearly, concentrating all the riches in the hands of an elite minority can only put a country or a sport on the road to destruction.

England will be the venue for the next World Cup, in 2019, and it is set to be a 10-team tournament. There’s little doubt that English cricket, having plundered talent from this country for so long, stand to benefit if the likes of Ireland and Scotland are barred from the highest echelon of the game; their top players will surely be tempted to play for England, just like their current captain, Eoin Morgan. England clearly need some reinforcements.

That the Associates and minnow nations like Zimbabwe and Bangladesh are adding value to the game’s global showpiece cannot be doubted. Zimbabwe did themselves proud against South Africa, Ireland have already beaten the West Indies and Scotland did substantially better against New Zealand than England.

The plucky United Arab Emirates have some elegant batsmen and a genuine quick bowler in Mohammad Naveed, Bangladesh’s Shakib al-Hasan is a world-class all-rounder, while Afghanistan’s mere presence is a tremendous story of sportsmen rising above incredible challenges.

Sadly, there is a South African man at the centre of these efforts to push back the Associates – former wicketkeeper/batsman Dave Richardson, although he is probably just taking orders from those who pay his salary as ICC chief executive.

I say this because Richardson has been quoted as saying having Associate teams in the World Cup leads to too many one-sided matches and has also been quoted as praising the unpredictability and charm that these same teams bring to the tournament!

There are, of course, places nine and ten open for qualifiers at the next World Cup, but Zimbabwe and Bangladesh, who vote in favour of the Big Three and receive financial rewards and more exposure for their teams as a result, will be heavily favoured to take those spots as the system is in their favour.

Apart from England’s dreadful performances, the other key features of the first week of the Cricket World Cup have been New Zealand’s invincibility at home, a new benchmark of 300 runs per innings being set by the powerful batting sides and the importance of taking wickets in the middle overs otherwise set batsmen in the death overs will run amok.

 

 

 

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