Ken Borland

The four remaining suspects in the 2015/16 RamSlam T20 Challenge matchfixing case will be sitting uneasily after Pumelela Matshikwe was given a six-year sentence, suspended for five years, for corruption in Pretoria last Friday.

Matshikwe is the second player to be convicted for his role in the matchfixing scandal, and he pleaded guilty to unlawfully entering into a corrupt relationship with Gulam Bodi and two separate bookmakers for fixing matches in the 2015/16 season of the T20 competition.

Bodi was sentenced to five years imprisonment in 2019 on eight charges of corruption for his role as the middleman in the scheme. It was the first time the Corrupt Practices Act had been used in a sporting context.

Fellow Highveld Lions cricketer Jean Symes has also been charged and his case is pending, while Thami Tsolekile, Ethy Mbhalati, Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Alviro Petersen, who have all been banned from cricket, have not yet been charged.

But it is known that the Hawks Anti-Corruption Task Team under the guidance of the National Prosecuting Authority’s senior state advocate Willem van Zyl, is continuing investigations into that quartet of former players.

While Matshikwe, who entered into a plea agreement with the state, and Symes have kept silent over the case, Tsolekile, Mbhalati, Tsotsobe and self-styled whistleblower Petersen have accused Cricket South Africa’s Anti-Corruption Unit of racism and coercion against them. They began their campaign to have the investigation reopened on a well-known radio talk show based in the city and even repeated their accusations in the Social Justice and Nation-Building Hearings.

The SJN ombudsman, Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, did not uphold their allegations.

Apart from causing immense pain to the South African cricket family, the four remaining suspects have increased their risk of criminal prosecution, with insiders saying the Hawks are determined to prosecute all the suspects one-by-one.

Bulls captain Marcell Coetzee always wants to win trophies, which is why even in his delight after beating Leinster for the first time at the weekend, he stressed that his team had still not completed their job.

Coetzee, who suffered playoff pain at the hands of Leinster during his five years with Ulster, made it clear that there was one remaining task for his team: To now beat the Stormers in the United Rugby Championship final in Cape Town on Saturday.

“My emotions are running high, four or five times I have come up short against Leinster,” Coetzee said after their epic semi-final win in Dublin. “So it’s a proud moment and definitely a highlight of my career.

“But we want to lift the trophy in any competition we play in. So we still have one more job to do. Our job is not done yet, there is still one game to go and we will go 100% in the final.”

The loose forward star, undoubtedly one of the best players in the URC this season, also knows that prowess in the scrums and lineouts is always crucial in semi-finals and finals. Having blunted the might of Leinster, the Stormers pack will now present another formidable challenge.

“If you’re going to have a chance of winning in playoffs then your set-piece has to function,” Coetzee said. “Credit to our forwards coach Russell Winter and the other coaches because we had done our homework.

“Leinster are all international stars and we said we have to play at that level, we had to win physically. Mentally we were also switched on.

“Our lineout was exceptional and we managed to adapt at the scrums. The pack showed their composure and we were able to get in the right positions, which is what we’ll need again,” Coetzee said.

Like the best choirmaster, Bulls coach Jake White has his charges singing in unison with perfect timing and blending of talents, and they undoubtedly played their best game of the season in the semi-final against Leinster.

“It was all about the plan, executing that correctly, getting in their faces, making sure our kicking game was good and getting our chase-line going,” Coetzee said.

The Bulls will no doubt bring the same strategy to Cape Town, as Stormers coach John Dobson mints a new generation of heroes to play in the blue-and-white.

The Stormers’ decision-making under the pressure the Bulls will exert on them on the gain-line is going to be the key factor in the final.

Heinrich Klaasen is not a regular member of the Proteas starting XI, and yet he had the confidence to go out and back himself in his matchwinning innings in the second T20 against India at the weekend. It is that same self-belief that South Africa will want to take into the third match in Visakhapatnam on Tuesday, with victory clinching the series for them.

Klaasen, who replaced the injured Quinton de Kock, came in at 29/3 after Bhuvneshwar Kumar had destroyed the top-order on a helpful pitch for seam bowling, and massacred the Indian attack in a superb 81 off 46 balls as the Proteas won by four wickets with 10 balls to spare in Cuttack.

“It was difficult and I struggled up front,” Klaasen said. “But then I decided that if I was going to get out then I would rather go out my way. So I decided to be positive and it was just one of those days when it came off.

“I said to Temba Bavuma that we needed to target the spinners because the seamers were getting up-and-down bounce. It’s a blessing to have this innings at this time of my career,” Klaasen, by no means a certainty for the Proteas T20 squad, said.

The Proteas have now travelled nearly 500km down the eastern Indian coastline to Visakhapatnam and her sweeping beaches on the Bay of Bengal. The Dr YS Rajasekhara Reddy Cricket Stadium was not used in the last IPL and the most recent T20 International there was in February 2019 when Australia chased down 127 off the last ball of the match and with seven wickets down against India. Pacemen Nathan Coulter-Nile and Jasprit Bumrah were the most successful bowlers.

So the pitch for Tuesday’s game could be more like the one in Cuttack than the batting paradise in Delhi for the first game.

Mother Cricket has not turned her smile towards the spinners so far in this series, with another small ground being used on Tuesday, and Proteas captain Bavuma is banking on his pacemen to again stifle the Indian batting.

“It was a good day for us in Cuttack and it started with the bowling, the way we bowled up front was exactly what we wanted,” Bavuma said.

“We want to be ruthless with the new ball, hit those areas and try and get whatever we can out of the pitch. We were able to apply pressure throughout, which happens whenever wickets fall regularly.

“We have a series to win and our focus will be on the achievables we set ourselves in all these games,” Bavuma said.

Heinrich Klaasen, the replacement for the injured Quinton de Kock as wicketkeeper, really grabbed his opportunity as he blasted a tremendous 81 off 46 balls to lead South Africa to a four-wicket win with 10 balls to spare in the second T20 against India in Cuttack on Sunday.

Klaasen’s remarkable innings came after seamer Bhuvneshwar Kumar had the Proteas batting reeling as they went in search of a moderate target of just 149.

South Africa won the first T20 as they chased down a record target of 212, but Sunday’s two-paced pitch at the Barabati Stadium really tested the batsmen on both sides, with inconsistent bounce and providing seam movement off the surface.

Bhuvneshwar undermined the Proteas chase from the start, using his remarkable skills to take 3/10 in his first three overs. Reeza Hendricks (4) and Rassie van der Dussen (1) were both bowled by deliveries that nipped back through the gate, while Dwaine Pretorius (4) was well-caught by Avesh Khan at deep backward square-leg off a knuckle ball.

Bhuvneshwar returned when just a handful of runs were needed and bowled Wayne Parnell for 1 to end with 4/13.

Captain Temba Bavuma scored a defiant 35 off 30 balls to begin the recovery with Klaasen, who came in do to De Kock’s finger injury suffered in the first game. The pair added 64 in seven overs before Bavuma was bowled by spinner Yuzvendra Chahal.

But Klaasen charged on, hitting seven fours and five sixes, with David Miller doing his usual efficient job at the death to finish the run-chase with 20 not out off 15 balls.

South Africa had won the toss and once again elected to chase, with Kagiso Rabada yet again delivering up front as he dismissed Ruturaj Gaikwad (1) in the first over and went on to bowl his four overs for an exceptionally economical 15 runs.

Ishan Kishan (34) and Shreyas Iyer (40) added 45 for the second wicket in six overs, before fast bowler Anrich Nortje had Kishan out hooking a bouncer and Pretorius surprised Shreyas with a delivery that stood up outside off stump and induced a catch behind.

Nortje and Pretorius were the dearest of the Proteas bowlers, however, conceding 36 and 40 runs respectively, and it was left-armer Parnell who backed up Rabada most effectively, bowling the dangerous Hardik Pandya for nine and conceding just 23 runs in his four overs.

Stalwart Dinesh Karthik hit 30 not out off 21 balls at the death to lift India to 148/6, which seemed a tricky target before Klaasen’s phenomenal innings.