Ken Borland

“We are not a one-man show,” Wiaan Mulder said when asked why the Durban Super Giants have made it all the way to the SA20 final following their 69-run demolition of the Joburg Super Kings in the last Qualifier at the Wanderers on Thursday evening.

But if truth be told, their emphatic victory was at most a two-man show as a scintillating partnership between Mulder and Heinrich Klaasen carried the game well out of the Super Kings’ reach.

Klaasen and Mulder added 101 for the fifth wicket off just 38 balls, transforming a match in which Joburg seemed to have the upper hand for the first dozen overs. They lashed 112 runs in the last seven overs, including 29 runs being plundered off both the 15^th over bowled by Imran Tahir and the 18^th bowled by Sam Cook.

The incredible onslaught carried the Super Giants to 211 for six after they had been sent in to bat. The stand between Klaasen and Mulder was the best ever for Durban’s fifth wicket, beating the unbeaten 84 Klaasen and Matthew Breetzke put on against the Pretoria Capitals at SuperSport Park last season.

The Super Giants then kept chipping away with the ball, dismissing Joburg Super Kings for 142 in the 18^th over.

The Durbanites did not have a great start, being 52 for three after seven overs, but Sri Lankan Bhanuka Rajapaksa, making his SA20 debut, helped Klaasen stabilise matters with his composed 35 off 23 balls as 43 was added for the fourth wicket. They then had the breathing space to launch the most stunning assault in the closing overs.

“We kinda knew the pitch had something in it and it was important to have a partnership,” Mulder said. “It’s not like we said we were going to pull the trigger, but we had a couple of match-ups, one thing led to the next and it just happened.

“A couple of soft balls got me going, then Klaasie got going and we all know how devastating he is when he’s firing. He’s arguably the best T20 batsman in the world at the moment. He’s a superstar and to score 74 off 30 on that pitch is a joke.

“I don’t think over 200 was par, maybe 180. It was really hard to score when they bowled into the pitch, but we had a couple of opportunities when they went full. And the way Klaasie was striking it, he turned 180 into more than 200. If the bowlers missed by a foot, they were in the stands, and maybe there were a few execution errors,” Mulder said.

The all-rounder will surely have changed some perceptions about him as a T20 player as his superb, vital 50 not out off just 23 balls continued his strong form this season.

While Klaasen will undoubtedly be the key man when DSG take on the Sunrisers at Newlands on Saturday, the defending champions will know their opponents have in-form, contributing players right through their line-up.

Breetzke and Jon-Jon Smuts have both made consistent runs and five DSG bowlers have taken more than 10 wickets.

“We are very similar to the Sunrisers in that we’ve had consistent performances from different people and that’s what wins competitions,” Mulder said. “To win competitions doesn’t take one person, it’s about how the players and management look after each other. In any successful team, the people play for the team.

“The most important thing is the environment and trying to create a good culture. There’s no unnecessary pressure put on us and there’s no nitpicking from anyone. That’s a big part of why we will be playing in the final,” Mulder said.

It may just amount to papering over the cracks, but Cricket South Africa are looking to meet the six SA20 franchises to discuss the fall-out from last week’s auction and get more clarity on why Proteas regulars Temba Bavuma and Andile Phehlukwayo were not bought by any of the teams.

Their omission, especially that of national T20 captain Bavuma, dominated South African cricket news, detracting from one of the most important events in the establishment of the new league as hopefully something that will enthral local fans.

Franchises like Sunrisers Eastern Cape, who are owned by the Sun Group who operate numerous Indian newspapers, TV and radio stations and so should understand the media fall-out, and Durban Super Giants chose top-order batsmen with inferior domestic records rather than Bavuma.

“It’s quite difficult because we agreed with the franchises that we would allow the bidding process to run independently,” CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki told The Citizen.

“But we were hugely disappointed, especially by the omission of Temba and Andile, that was quite a shock. We need to have a post-mortem to see how we can avoid this happening in the future.

“I am part of the SA20 board and I will be proposing a post-mortem with the franchises. It will be a discussion, not an interrogation. We can’t control how they go about picking their teams, but we just want to understand better why it happened.

“We will have earnest discussions with them and inform the public as well. We want the public’s buy-in for this tournament, so they need to be able to read and hear why certain players weren’t chosen,” Moseki said.

The first sign that things were heading south at the auction came when Sunrisers Eastern Cape bought Marques Ackerman in the 12^th round of bidding. The KZN Dolphins batsman has a strike-rate of 123.68 and an average of 24.25 in 39 domestic T20s, compared to Bavuma’s strike-rate of 124.67 and an average of 30.52 over 100 matches.

Ackerman’s base price was admittedly just R175 000, while Bavuma’s was R850 000, which was clearly set too high, either by himself or whoever advised him poorly. Moseki confirmed that “the Proteas players could choose their own reserve price, initially they were told to go at R850 000, but if they wanted to go lower then they could do that. It was not possible to lower their price during the auction though”.

“We will ask the franchises whether there was enough local input in their selections. We need a long-term plan to ensure this does not happen again, specifically when it comes to contracted Black players.

“It will be very sad if it happens again next year and we obviously need to plan better,” Moseki said.

Proteas captain Dean Elgar knows as well as anyone that batting first at Old Trafford was not going to be easy, but he expected the batting line-up to show more resilience, saying the poor performance with the bat on the first day was why South Africa lost the second Test against England by an innings and 85 runs on Saturday.

Having selected two frontline spinners in their XI, it was almost inevitable that the Proteas would bat first after they won the toss to allow Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer to bowl on a deteriorating pitch in the fourth innings. But that plan was torn to shreds when South Africa were bundled out for 151 shortly after tea on the first day.

“Obviously the lack of first-innings runs was where the game was lost,” opening batsman Elgar said after the Manchester thumping that sends the series into a decider at The Oval from September 8. “That’s when you stabilise your game and scoring 300+ gives you the best chance of competing. We got half of that.

“We did not bat well. Sure, the ball moved around, but this is Test cricket and you must deal with it. Losing two wickets just before lunch was crucial. If we had been 80/3 then we would have been in a good position.

“But we were five down and then we were always playing catch-up. The pitch deteriorated like we thought it would and there was plenty in it for both seamers and spinners.

“It’s all been a bit of a blur since Day 1, it all happened so quickly after that. England’s batting let them down in the first innings at Lord’s and it happened in this Test as well. You set yourself up nicely if you score runs in the first innings,” Elgar said.

Before what should be an exciting finalé to the tour back in London, Elgar said it was important the Proteas don’t panic despite the horrible loss in the second Test.

“Sometimes you can go into panic mode after a defeat like that, but myself and the coach definitely won’t be doing that. We know we’re not suddenly a bad side.

“I know have a couple of days to process everything, but I won’t change my approach because to do that now would be letting myself down. And I think the players enjoy my honesty.

“Sometimes time away from the game is good, we will do things as a squad though, touch base again, get connected again. We need to pull ourselves towards ourselves and let the dust settle.

“It’s an adult environment and I won’t treat the players like schoolchildren because I know I would not have liked that as a young player. But there are a few tough decisions coming our way,” Elgar said.

What strikes you most when chatting to Cricket South Africa’s CEO Pholetsi Moseki is that this man just loves the game so much and also feels he has a responsibility to it, which explains why he stuck it out through the organisation’s most problematic years.

Moseki first joined CSA in July 2019 as their chief financial officer. By the end of that year, the organisation was in an administrative shambles and Moseki found himself fulfilling various extra roles until he was ultimately appointed acting chief executive in December 2020, succeeding the likes of Jacques Faul and the shortlived Kugandrie Govender.

CSA then made that appointment permanent, on a five-year deal, in March this year, a decision which, by all accounts, is a popular one with the staff and the organisation’s stakeholders.

“I was introduced to cricket in the mid-90s by my cousin and it was huge fun watching the Proteas back then. The beauty of it was being able to watch five days of cricket on SABC and Test cricket is still my favourite format,” Moseki told The Citizen.

“So when I joined CSA as their CFO, I felt I was doing something I love and the first three months were lovely. Then all the chaos started and I thought ‘What have you done?!’

“I don’t know how many times I was deciding whether to stay or go, but by the time I thought I should go, in late 2020, I was the only executive left and I felt a responsibility.

“I was the last man standing, but I was fond of the organisation and the people working there, and I love cricket. So for 18 months it was the sense of responsibility that kept me going.

“It’s not just about head office, there are 1800 people employed in our affiliates around the country. I did not want all of that to collapse so I committed to contributing to the rescue operation.

“It meant sometimes I was having three hours of sleep a day to do it, Graeme Smith had to step up and the staff as well, and I was extremely proud of their efforts.

“There were bullets flying all over, but we kept out heads down. We understood what was at stake. Cricket is not just a hobby, it pays for peoples’ school and medical fees,” Moseki said.

Apart from cricket, the chartered accountant says family are his other great passion.

“I was born and bred in Soweto and I went to school there until Standard 7, when my parents decided, with all the 90s chaos in the townships, to send me to school in the city centre of Johannesburg – St Endas College in Hillbrow.

“The only subject I really liked was accounting, maybe because I had a lovely teacher, young and pretty,” Moseki chuckled. “And then I did my CA through Unisa.

“I am married with a son who is 16 but believes he is in his 20s. They keep me sane and I am very close-knit with my siblings and my Dad is still around too.”

Having begun his working career as a Natal Building Society teller, he says a stint at Deutsche Bank was “when my ambition formed, investment banking was the place to be and it was the most amazing time of my life”.

Since then he has run his own consultancy and advisory businesses, as well as being a CFO at one of Denel’s divisions and, before joining CSA, at Magalies Water, which meant driving to Rustenburg every day.

Our cricket is in the hands of someone who not only knows how to count those all-important beans, but also how to grow and sustain them.

“Our new T20 competition is going to be key to our sustainability going forward. But like any new product, you don’t expect it to make money in the first few years.

“But if, after five to 10 years, we get 5% of the revenue the IPL is making, that would already be more than our current revenue. Our two previous editions cost us hundreds of millions of rand, but now we have a long-term plan with great partners like SuperSport.

“The nature of the cricket calendar means you’re always competing against someone’s T20 league, but we’re backing ourselves. In January people are still in holiday mode, the varsities haven’t opened yet.

“We need to get our fans’ hearts and souls back. We will make it the best we can and back our local market,” Moseki said.

Which is where the new partnership with Roc Nation comes in. The entertainment and events brand are experts at reaching urban youth and there is going to be a real focus on improving spectator experience and using digital to drive CSA’s vision for the game.

“New technology is absolutely important and digital is so crucial – the IPL has just sold their digital rights for $4 million per match, more than the TV rights. We don’t want to get left behind.

“We’re going to go big on our app, there are a lot of amazing things planned for that, linked to the sort of amazing stadium experiences you have in the U.S.

“It’s all about connectivity and over there you can order food on your app inside the stadium, book specific seats; the digital experience of the game is key.

“Over the next few years, there are going to be a lot of changes in South African cricket, and technology will be front and centre of that, to improve the stadium experience,” Moseki said.

But as Moseki beavers away in his Melrose Estate office, he knows that CSA’s most important property is the game. The cricket must come first.

“For the last two years we have not been focused on cricket but on everything else. It’s actually amazing that our Proteas teams and our staff and members are doing so well.

“But our attention needs to go back to cricket, developing more players, improving our relationships with our stakeholders and improving the stadium experience.

“We want to make sure we are the partner of choice and the employer of choice, and that our fans and the media want to come to our events,” Moseki stated.