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Ken Borland



Hectares of playing area at the MCG, but no place for the Proteas to hide 0

Posted on July 24, 2023 by Ken

There is more than a hectare of playing area at the cavernous Melbourne Cricket Ground, the largest stadium in the southern hemisphere, but there will be no place to hide for the Proteas as they look to stay alive in the series in the second Test against Australia starting in the early hours of Boxing Day (SA time).

South African captain Dean Elgar confirmed on Saturday that the tourists will field the same bowling attack which did a good job in the first Test in Brisbane, so if there is a change to the team then it will come amongst the beleaguered batting line-up.

“Playing at the MCG is the stuff of childhood dreams and I personally watched the Boxing Day Tests on TV as a young kid. So it’s going to be a surreal moment going out on the field,” Elgar said.

“It’s the first time here for the whole squad really, we have not been in these waters before. But we have a massive job at hand, trying to level the series, and we can’t wait to get going.

“We do have our final XI picked and there was chat around the seven/four split. But the bowlers have retained their spots, so if there is a change then it will come in the batting.

“We’ve had two days of really intense preparation, but now the guys need to pitch up and respond. We’ve had good conversations, but talk is cheap now, we’d best put a performance on the board,” Elgar said.

The opening batsman said he hoped for a much fairer pitch than the minefield used for the first Test at the Gabba. A two-day Test was not only a massive fail for the game but a commercial disaster for Queensland cricket.

“The pitch feels a lot firmer now, it was quite wet yesterday [Thursday] from the rain. So it seems a good wicket, we want that balance between bat and ball, that’s all we ever ask for.

“I imagine it’s not that easy preparing pitches, but obviously we don’t want another two-day Test, hopefully that will never be repeated again.

“We have an attack that can win Test matches, but we need to get them into that situation and we know runs on the board are key. We had a bit of a hurdle last week, but we are starting afresh.

“We all feel in a good space. We had a brilliant build-up before the first Test, but then a bit of a hiccup. But both batting units had that bar one batsman. Maybe too much has been read into what happened last week,” Elgar said.

Markram & Elgar put on largest partnership of the match to wipe out deficit 0

Posted on March 11, 2021 by Ken

Test openers Aiden Markram and Dean Elgar put together the largest partnership of the match thus far and wiped out the first-innings deficit as they took the Titans to 162 without loss at stumps on the third day of their CSA 4-Day Domestic Series match at SuperSport Park on Tuesday.

It was a great effort by Markram, who went to 90 not out, a 191-ball innings filled with lovely strokes, especially drives, and Elgar, who was on 65 not out and showed his typical determination to blunt the bowlers. Their partnership meant the Titans will go into the final day with a lead of 11 runs and all 10 wickets intact.

That after they conceded a massive first-innings deficit of 151, things heading south for them badly in the hour before lunch as the Knights were able to declare on 414 for nine.

The visitors had resumed on 307 for six and the Titans again maintained a strong grip on proceedings with the ball in the first hour.

But veteran Protea Farhaan Behardien stayed cool as he fought his way to 142, a great knock against his former side in the clash between the competition’s two pool leaders.

It took a superb one-handed, diving catch by Titans skipper Grant Thomson, at backward square-leg, to eventually dismiss Behardien off the bowling of Lizaad Williams (30-2-103-4), but Shaun von Berg then stepped up.

Having weathered an early barrage from the Titans quicks, he showed great decision-making as he stuck around through the tough times with Behardien as they added 39 for the seventh wicket in 17.4 overs, and then attacked to score 58 not out.

Alfred Mothoa scored 18 as he helped Von Berg add 58 runs for the ninth wicket.

Big Trevor & the lollipop: Meyer leaving nothing to chance 0

Posted on December 22, 2016 by Ken

Being one of the largest specimens of humanity in Pretoria, Trevor Nyakane is not exactly hard to spot. But I was nevertheless very excited to see him at Loftus Versfeld the other day, mostly because of what he was doing.

The Bulls prop was busy with Springbok assistant coach John McFarland practising lineout throwing, with the defence guru using the big metal “lollipop stick” he designed exactly for this purpose to replicate Victor Matfield’s hands soaring high above the opposition and claiming the throw that sets up the maul that sets up the try that wins South Africa the World Cup later this year.

I was intrigued because I figured this may mean Nyakane is being groomed to play hooker for the Springboks.

There has not been much for the Bulls to be happy about this season, but Nyakane has been one of the few shining lights at Loftus Versfeld, and here, at the same venue, he was showing the adaptability that has already seen him master the tighthead position, having left the Cheetahs as a loosehead at the start of the year.

I was very excited because, if Nyakane could play as a back-up No 2 it would mean Heyneke Meyer could name just two hookers in his squad, thereby freeing up a place that could help unblock the amazing loose forward log-jam he has to wrestle with.

Because the World Cup in England will be just an overnight flight away from South Africa, it means Nyakane could sit on the bench if one of the two match-day hookers went down on the eve of a game, with a replacement being flown over if the injury was more long-term.

At the moment, Meyer can only take five loose forwards to the World Cup (with Oupa Mohoje going as a lock), so Duane Vermeulen, Francois Louw, Willem Alberts, Schalk Burger and Marcell Coetzee would appear to be the frontrunners. But that would mean leaving quality, in-form players such as Jaco Kriel, Warren Whiteley, Siya Kolisi and Nizaam Carr behind, so any scheme that could sneak one of those on to the plane to England should be investigated.

Unfortunately it’s turned out that this was one of the many occasions when I was getting ahead of myself and Nyakane is definitely not being groomed as a hooker and Meyer will choose three No 2s in the World Cup squad.

But it is one of the many examples of how detailed Meyer’s planning is for the World Cup because Nyakane is being trained as a back-up thrower should the on-field hooker get a yellow card. Of which Bismarck du Plessis has many.

It’s an emergency policy for 10 minutes, but it has happened a couple of times to the Springboks in the last two years, with Vermeulen notably forced to throw into the lineout against Ireland last year.

It’s another of the many one-percenters that Meyer reckons could decide the World Cup and the Springbok coach has gone into minute detail in his planning. That includes poring over the minutiae of every previous tournament and the venues where his team will play. He has even gone into the weather records and keeps an eye on the long-term forecasts.

Unfortunately there still seems to be no solution to the problem that will see the likes of Kriel, Whiteley, Kolisi and Carr staying at home!

http://citizen.co.za/sport/sport-columnists/408023/kb-col/

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