Ken Borland

Whatever people say about going to Benoni, Willowmoore Park is rapidly becoming a field of dreams for the Unlimited Titans players with Roelof van der Merwe and Rowan Richards adding to the list of phenomenal individual performances there in the Sunfoil Series victory over the Chevrolet Warriors over the weekend.

Van der Merwe turned his maiden first-class century into a double, scoring 205 not out as the Titans amassed 539 for six in their first innings. Left-arm paceman Richards then took five for 31 as the Titans dismissed the Warriors for the second time with just a dozen overs remaining in the match. His final spell was a phenomenal 5.4-3-2-5 and included a hat-trick to end the match.

It is only the fourth time that a double century and a hat-trick have been scored in the same first-class match in South Africa and the second time it has happened at Willowmoore Park. The other occasion was the famous match in 1948/49 when Denis Compton blazed a triple century for the English tourists in 181 minutes against North-Eastern Transvaal, with seamer Cliff Gladwin then taking a hat-trick.

Last season, Shaun von Berg blasted the fastest century – off 73 balls – in franchise four-day history for the Titans against the Cape Cobras in Benoni.

Van der Merwe has always been one of the hardest workers in the Titans team and the dramatic improvement in his batting – he was their leading run-scorer in last season’s Sunfoil Series and averaged 55.57 – has been the reward.

“It’s all about the way you train in the nets and it’s just mental really. My target is to face a hundred balls, it’s a simple thing, but often scoring a fifty isn’t enough to get you there,” Van der Merwe said of his improvement.

“The way the Titans’ set-up is now, Shaun von Berg is the number one spinner for four-day cricket and the only way I can be sure of playing is by being a batsman. I’ve become almost a part-time bowler if you like, but that’s how I stay in the side, through scoring runs and my bowling is an extra,” the left-arm spinner said.

The Titans batsmen have struggled for consistency in recent times and coach Rob Walter has often stressed the importance of scoring centuries. It was typical Bulldog Roelof for him to go and make that first hundred of the season a double!

“We have struggled over the past few seasons to make big scores, so it was a good start in Benoni. I was very stressed going to a hundred for the first time, I felt sure something was going to go wrong again in the 90s, but I was able to play with freedom after that,” Van der Merwe, whose previous highest score was 93 against the Highveld Lions in 2010, said.

The Titans have been waiting for Richards to find his best form after a long-term injury lay-off, and the 30-year-old hit his straps in spectacular fashion as he wrecked the Warriors’ brave effort to save the game.

“It’s my first hat-trick and it makes it really special that it won the game and gave me a five-for,” Richards said after his career-best figures in the Sunfoil Series.

“I knew it would be my last spell of the day, so I just pushed it and made sure I hit good areas. There had been a lot of effort before me by the other seamers, JP de Villiers and Ethy Mbhalati, that broke the long partnership between Colin Ingram and Ryan Bailey, and we just said that another wicket would bring more breakthroughs. We never gave up and I found my rhythm at the right time.”

Left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso will be heading Down Under next week with the South African team confident that he now has an important part to play in their World Cup plans and that he can perform against the best in the world.

Tours to our Southern African neighbours Zimbabwe seldom produce much of huge significance for the Proteas, but this year it was different because they managed to freeze out great rivals Australia in the final of a hard-fought triangular series. That can only mean the ODI outfit is heading in the right direction and Phangiso got stuck in in the final and was South Africa’s most economical bowler in the tournament.

“It was a very important confidence-booster for me because I hadn’t got a lot of opportunity before that, although I did travel a lot. To do well against Australia, to play a role in beating them in the final was superb,” Phangiso said at the Wanderers yesterday, where he was attending the breakfast announcement of Rolux as new suppliers for Cricket South Africa.

The Garankuwa-born, Soshanguve-raised cricketer has toured Australia twice before, with the SA Emerging Players and SA A teams, but on both occasions it was in winter. Conditions could well be tougher for a spinner at the height of summer.

“Australia is the country of pace bowling, but watching previous games there on TV, there’s always bounce, which will be important for me as a spinner if there’s not much turn. I will try and contain as much as possible and give the other bowlers the chance to take wickets,” Phangiso said.

The Highveld Lions star is looking forward to the possibility of bowling in tandem with his former team-mate Imran Tahir, the attacking leg-spinner.

“It will depend on conditions, but I would like to see us bowl in tandem, one of us can attack and the other contain. You never know who will take the wickets in that situation. I like to think we will all get lots of opportunity before the World Cup, some game time before the tournament in pressure situations,” Phangiso said.

If the 30-year-old can produce the goods again against two of the favourites to win the World Cup (playing on their home turf) then the confidence levels will rise even higher. Which is what Dale Steyn, the leader of the South African attack, said was probably the most important thing the team want to gain from the tour.

Close to 60 000 people will be mesmerised at Ellis Park this afternoon when the Springboks take on the All Blacks, with a five-game losing streak against the New Zealanders suggesting that the home side have some catching up to do.

One of the problems the Springboks face is that there seems to be an over-reliance on the skills of Willie le Roux on attack. At times it seems that everybody else is expecting him to spark something and the pressure is causing the poor fullback to continually come into the flyhalf channel and try more and more outlandish things, leading to more and more mistakes. He is also being tightly marked by opposition defences which are well aware of the danger he poses.

It is never a wise strategy to put so much of a burden on one player, rather spread the load around by up-skilling others, and our national cricket team is facing the same issue when it comes to the limited-overs game.

The lack of bowling skill in South African cricket has been exposed by the dismal performances of the Cape Cobras and the Dolphins in the Champions League T20, where both teams’ attacks were put to the sword by opposition batsmen on flat pitches.

While Dale Steyn is still able to lay down the law in the powerplay up front and in the death overs due to his mastery of reverse-swing and the intelligent variations of slower-balls, yorkers and different-speed bouncers he uses, you have to wonder who else the South Africans will be able to rely on come the World Cup and a situation where they might be defending 50 off the last five overs in the final.

Just like the Springboks are relying too heavily on Le Roux, the Proteas are too dependent on Steyn and you can only be dismayed by the poor bowling performances of the two best T20 sides in the country in India.

You need only to look at the averages of the tournament to notice the problem: Sybrand Engelbrecht (what an impressive time he had) was the only Cobras bowler to concede less than eight runs an over, while not one Dolphins bowler managed that economy rate.

Batsmen were able to have a go with impunity, especially in the death overs. The Cobras conceded 60 in the last five overs against Northern Districts, 61 in four versus Hobart Hurricanes, and 63 in six against Barbados.

The Dolphins were belted for 63 in the last six by the Perth Scorchers, 68 in five by Chennai Super Kings, 109 in nine by Lahore and 80 off the last seven by the Kolkata Knight Riders.

A major part of the problem is that bowlers have little incentive to learn skills playing in domestic cricket because the pitches generally allow them to just bang the ball in and allow the surface to give them bounce and movement.

According to Cricket South Africa high performance manager Vincent Barnes, it is an area of great concern they have identified, especially since most ICC tournaments are held in sub-continental conditions these days. Who would bet against the BCCI instructing their new ruling triumvirate partners Australia to make sure World Cup pitches next year are flat and don’t assist pace bowlers?

In order for our bowlers to develop the skills of consistently bowling yorkers or being able to produce an array of deliveries like Ben Loughlin of the Hobart Hurricanes possesses, they need to be practising those skills regularly at home. Our pitches for domestic cricket need to force bowlers to improve their standards.

As Graeme Smith pointed out last week, it’s not just all about bowling yorkers; death bowling is a mindset issue and bowlers need to develop strategies, they need to have a definite plan.

Leaving it all up to Dale Steyn is not a good plan.