Ken Borland

There was arguably more relief for Quinton de Kock’s many supporters than for the batsman himself after his superb unbeaten century on the second day of the first Test against the West Indies at St Lucia on Friday, but there is no denying the last year has been very tough for the Proteas wicketkeeper/batsman.

For one of the more instinctive, laid-back talents in South African cricket, a person whose off-field pursuits are largely geared around the great outdoors, bio-bubbles are not easy for De Kock and over and above that he also had to deal with the captaincy of a struggling side. Having taken a break in the latter half of the summer and now relieved of the captaincy, De Kock blossomed on Friday with a brilliantly judged innings of 141 not out that put the Proteas in firm control of the first Test with a massive first-innings lead of 225.

“It didn’t really have anything to do with the captaincy,” De Kock said of his recent struggles, “it’s just the Covid bubbles. We’ve had so many and they just took their toll. It was too much and I just needed a break. Cricket South Africa deemed it a mental break, but I wasn’t tired of cricket, I was tired of the bubbles.

“I went from the IPL into the Pakistan bubble and that was particularly difficult, just going from the ground to one floor of the hotel and our rooms that had no balconies. Previously I wasn’t able to capitalise on my starts in Test cricket and then in the last while I haven’t even been getting starts, so it was nice to get the hundred today,” De Kock explained after his career-best Test innings.

De Kock has always been one of the classiest strokeplayers in the game, but on Friday he showed the appreciation of the game situation and the ability to adapt to it that is a mark of all the top batsmen. After a rapid start that saw him race to 22 off 24 balls, a much better second hour by the West Indian bowlers on a pitch that was still offering plenty of assistance to the quicks, saw De Kock adopt a much more cautious approach and he went to lunch on 44 off 88 deliveries.

The left-hander shared a couple of very useful partnerships with Rassie van der Dussen and Wiaan Mulder, but a fightback by the home side saw the Proteas slip to 233 for eight. But batting with the tail is a skill that De Kock has mastered, despite all the people who want him batting higher up the order, and he showed a cool, razor-sharp mind as he added 79 for the ninth wicket with Anrich Nortje, who scored just seven of those runs.

“It was a nice start to the day and then the bowlers brought it back really well. I understood the situation though and there was a lot in the pitch. We just needed to soak up the pressure for as long as we could and then capitalise. Credit also to the other guys who chipped in. It was a difficult pitch, even though it was not as up-and-down as it was with the new ball in the second innings.

“Even after 75 overs the ball was swinging a lot, but you’ve just go to find a way of dealing with it. There was obviously still a lot in that pitch on the second day, but it was a fair contest because if you worked hard as a batsman you could get runs and the bowlers always had a chance too,” De Kock said.

New Bulls captain Marcell Coetzee might not go so far as to consider Sean Everitt as something akin to an uncle, but the Sharks coach admitted it is going to be tough seeing his former protégé leading the opposition in their decisive Rainbow Cup match in Durban on Saturday.

Coetzee started his professional career with the Sharks, having been schooled at Port Natal High School, and it was Everitt, then in charge of youth rugby at Kings Park, who guided him through the process of being a talented player from an unfashionable rugby school, through age group rugby to being nominated for SA Rugby’s Young Player of the Year award in 2012. Three years later Coetzee made his Springbok debut and he moved to Ulster in 2016, where he established himself as a superstar.

“Marcell will always have a special place in Sharks fans’ hearts and it’s going to be quite sore to see him captain the Bulls after we brought him through from Port Natal. He was magnificent last weekend and he’s been very good for Ulster too. But our guys want to prove themselves against the best and he’s certainly been one of the best in Europe.

“Marcell is motivated every week he puts on a rugby jersey, but he probably sees a bit of a gap in the Springbok set-up with Duane Vermeulen’s injury, and I’m sure there was a lot of disappointment at being left out so I have no doubt he wants to really put his hand up against us,” Everitt said.

Bulls coach Jake White is never shy to milk any sort of psychological advantage he can get and he was not slow to point out the difficulties facing the Sharks as they look to beat the Bulls with a bonus point,  while also denying the visitors any log points, if Everitt is to take his team to Treviso next week for the Rainbow Cup final rather than to Kimberley for their Currie Cup opener.

”The Sharks are a good side, probably the one side that has consistently really pushed us and they play  a solid, certain style of rugby. They will be motivated because they have to beat us comfortably, but in trying to play a bit differently, there’s the risk that they will present us with opportunities if their efforts don’t come off.

“If you try and run everything and you’ve never trained that way, then it could lead to disaster. It’s going to be interesting to see how they adapt to that. We know we just need one point, which we get if we score four tries, so we will also be going flat out for that. It’s like 50-over cricket, you know you can bat through the overs, but you need to score runs as well,” White said.

Cricket South Africa’s long-awaited AGM will take place on Saturday from 10am and the Independent Nominations Panel will be responsible for appointing the eight independent directors to serve on the new 15-person Board, while the Members Council will elect five of their representatives to become non-independent directors.

Dr Stavros Nicolaou, the chaiman of the Interim Board, revealed on Friday at the handover of their report to sports minister Nathi Mthethwa that the nominations panel was headed by the chairman of the Institute of Directors Muhammad Seedat, and the six members included such well-known cricket figures as former first-class cricketer and match referee, attorney Enver Mall; former ICC and CSA president Ray Mali; and former Proteas pace bowler David Terbrugge.

Nicolaou stressed that the Interim Board had no input into the eight nominations that the panel will present on Saturday, except for establishing the parameters around which the members of the Independent Nominations Panel were appointed.

The tenure of the Interim Board will come to an end at the AGM.

“It’s been six months of intense work trying to unscramble many years of problems. Our report contains our learnings and recommendations for the future, and is a template for the next board, hopefully a springboard to more effective executive management. It’s a foundation for the future and that’s most important.

“Our mandate was not just about cricket, it was much bigger than that as Minister Mthethwa highlighted when he first met with us at the end of October. Sport cuts cross every facet of our lives and if cricket fails then it has a much wider impact than just for sport,” Nicolaou said.

Rihan Richards, the acting president of the Members Council that was mostly at loggerheads with the Interim Board and the Minister, thanked both Mthethwa and Nicolaou “for what you have done for cricket”.

“We are entering into a new era for cricket, this will change the face of cricket completely. This is just a report until it is implemented and now we have to take it forward. I don’t anticipate any problems with that at the AGM,” Richards said.

The maudlin cries complaining that all our best talent goes overseas is something we are quite used to hearing in cricket and rugby and the issue has come to the fore again with Devon Conway’s spectacular debut for New Zealand’s impressive Black Caps cricket team and Springbok director of rugby Rassie Erasmus announcing a squad of which nearly 50% were based overseas.

Top sportspeople taking their skills elsewhere is one of the biggest challenges facing our administrators, but it is also a problem that the country faces as a whole in a wide range of fields. On the sporting side, there is not much cash-strapped Cricket South Africa nor SA Rugby can do about the major socio-economic issues that are driving emigration.

Erasmus has bemoaned the financial realities that mean it is just about impossible for SA Rugby to stop their leading players from taking lucrative contracts overseas; the Rand simply cannot compete. And appealing to professional sportspeople to consider the good of the game back home is a bit like pleading with a kid to eat their broccoli because it’s good for them.

But by choosing a Springbok squad to play the British and Irish Lions in which 22 of the 46 members are based overseas, Erasmus is in a way encouraging what he was complaining about. Local players see that squad packed with emigrants and must be thinking that heading off to Europe or Japan will be a fruitful endeavour.

And not just in terms of their wallets. This latest Springbok squad selection has almost sent a message that you are more likely to be picked if you are based overseas.

There are so many talents blossoming in South African domestic rugby at the moment – the likes of Ruan Nortje, Lizo Gqoboka, JD Schickerling and even the reinvented Cornal Hendricks – but it seems every time there was a 50/50 call, the selection went the way of the guy based overseas.

Erasmus has expressed his disappointment that there are so many of our players offshore, but favouring the exiles when it comes to selection is not going to help restrict the numbers departing.

The tacit statement behind the selection is that the standard of overseas rugby – even in Japan – is better than that of the South African domestic game, which is not a great admission for the director of rugby to make.

A 50% overseas Springbok team is also harder for the general South African public, the vast majority of whom do not have satellite TV, to relate to and support. How many rugby fans have actually seen Coenie Oosthuizen play lately? But most rugby fans will know that Gqoboka has been in rampaging form for the Bulls.

Ever since Apartheid was introduced to rip apart the fabric of our society, we have lost cricketers to overseas teams. The original outflux was to England, but lately there has been a surge of South African products playing for New Zealand.

Amazing as it might be for a country of five million people and more than 26 million sheep, New Zealand is not just the best producer of woollen products in the world, but they stand on the verge of being the best Test cricket team on the planet as well. That after falling just one run (or one boundary or one correct umpiring decision) short of winning the ODI World Cup.

So New Zealand certainly have a strong national cricket team at the moment. Which is ironic because there have been a pile of South African imports who couldn’t crack it here but have made it big on that island.

Left-arm quick Neil Wagner is the current enforcer of the bowling attack, BJ Watling is arguably the best Test wicketkeeper/batsman in the world (joining Kruger van Wyk and Glen Phillips as Saffers who have donned the gloves for the Black Caps), Colin Munro is a flashy white-ball player and no-one should need reminding of what Grant Elliott did to the Proteas in the 2015 World Cup semi-final.

Conway has now joined that list and his is an interesting tale. Having been a schoolboy prodigy, the Johannesburger went through hell just trying to establish himself as a franchise cricketer. In 21 four-day franchise games he could only average 21 and his white-ball averages are almost identical.

And then in 2017 he decided to make a fresh start halfway across the world and pow! Conway is now one of the most exciting newcomers to international cricket and his 200 against England on Test debut at Lord’s must be one of the finest performances in a first Test ever.

But blaming CSA for letting this late-blooming talent slip through their fingers is one of my pet hates. Sure, transformation priorities do lead to certain people being favoured when it comes to selection, but Conway was given every opportunity here but for some reason just could not perform well enough to become a household name.

He deserves nothing but praise though for how he has rejuvenated his career.