Ken Borland

The ODI series between South Africa and England is set to be cancelled later today after the first ODI in Paarl was called off shortly before the toss due to the two positive Covid tests returned by the English touring party.

The first ODI was originally meant to be played on Friday, but it was postponed at short notice after a Proteas player (believed to be Heinrich Klaasen, who missed the third T20 because he was “sick”) tested positive.

Sunday’s match looked good to go when the rest of the Proteas squad all returned negative tests on Saturday, but then two members of The Vineyard hotel staff tested positive that evening. The England squad, already perturbed over the positive test in the Proteas camp, all went for testing that night as well, and on Sunday it was confirmed two of them were positive for the virus.

The future of the series, which comprises two more matches at Newlands on Monday and Wednesday, now depends on those two positive results in the England touring party being ratified by independent medical experts. The chances of the original results being wrong would appear to be slim and with the England players not wanting any form of forced isolation to jeopardise their departure date from South Africa on Thursday, it is likely they will call off the series. Some of the players have lucrative Big Bash contracts in Australia to fulfil, while others just want to get home for Christmas.

It would appear there must have been some sort of breach to the bio-secure bubble both squads are in at The Vineyard in Cape Town, leading to plenty of questions as to how this could have happened but pretty much only vacant stares in response.

“At this stage, it is not clear how the staff members became infected as neither have left the bio-secure area since November 16 and they do not work on the same team or in the same area. Our Covid response team is endeavouring to establish all the facts and contact tracing is underway. We have placed all our resources and efforts into investigating and resolving the situation,” Roy Davies, the general manager of The Vineyard, said in a statement.

Cricket South Africa’s chief medical officer, Dr Shuaib Manjra, was equally mystified.

“There has been some kind of breach and we have gone into great detail in our investigations. We have spoken to the player and looked at the footage from security cameras, but come up with nothing yet. Ninety-nine percent of this environment works, but there may be an unknown breach.

“But I can categorically say that no player has been able to leave the bio-bubble, security would not allow it, nobody can leave unless they’re in an official vehicle with an official driver. The command centre is led by the colonel of the Claremont police station and he would not allow anyone to leave. Even the guys going across the road to train at the Oval where a concern for him,” Manjra said.

The Bulls produced a telling mix of power in the tight phases and slick attacking play in the second half to run away with their Currie Cup match against the Free State Cheetahs at Loftus Versfeld on Saturday, eventually romping to a 40-13 victory.

The Bulls started like a house on fire, cruising to a 13-3 lead after the first quarter, but the Cheetahs, taking advantage of their impressive scrum and some errors in judgement by the Bulls in their own territory, dominated the rest of the first half and the score was level 13-13 at halftime. And that was with the Free Staters wasting a few opportunities for more points.

But with Trevor Nyakane replacing Marcel van der Merwe at tighthead prop after 34 minutes, the Bulls shored up their scrums, their lineout work was excellent and they contested very well on the Cheetahs ball, they used the rolling maul to good effect and were clinical in forcing turnovers and then capitalising on them.

Having been sucked into playing the way the Cheetahs wanted to in the first half, the Bulls once again showed that when they stick to their game-plan, they are tough to beat.

Openside flank Marco van Staden went to town at the breakdowns, was prominent in the mauls and carried the ball strongly, being rewarded with two tries and the man of the match award.

Other heroes for the Bulls were flyhalf Morne Steyn with his educated boot, which netted him a perfect six-from-six record from two conversions and four penalties, as well as gaining the home side plenty of territory with pinpoint accuracy. He did go through a bit of a distracted phase in the second quarter though, his mistakes allowing the Cheetahs to pin the Bulls in their own half.

The experienced hands like captain Duane Vermeulen, flank Arno Botha and Steyn led from the front in ensuring the Bulls returned to basics, and coach Jake White followed his urgent introduction of Nyakane by bringing on lock Ruan Nortje and scrumhalf Ivan van Zyl early in the second half, both of them making a difference in lifting the energy of the home team.

The Free State Cheetahs certainly extended the Super Rugby Unlocked champions more than the final scoreline suggests, but for all their valiant efforts, they were simply not accurate enough, handling errors and soft penalties costing them dearly.

Scorers

Bulls – Tries: Embrose Papier, Marco van Staden (2), Chris Smith. Conversions: Morne Steyn (2), Smith (2). Penalties: Steyn (4).

Free State Cheetahs – Try: Rynhardt Fortuin. Conversion: Francois Steyn. Penalties: Steyn (2).

The Cheetahs may have been the only team to beat them this season, but as Bulls coach Jake White pointed out, it is a very different Free State team that is coming to Loftus Versfeld for their Currie Cup match on Saturday and they have to endure a bus ride from Bloemfontein to Pretoria before the game.

The Cheetahs edged the Bulls 19-17 on October 16 at Free State Stadium, but they will be missing eight starters, including five forwards and veteran scrumhalf Ruan Pienaar, from that game on Saturday. The Bulls will also feel that they wasted several opportunities to win that first meeting with the Cheetahs and they have also grown considerably as a team since then, with the confidence of winning Super Rugby Unlocked.

“Free State are a different team, they’ve lost a couple of props in Charles Marais and Luan de Bruin, they’ve lost Oupa Mohoje, Walt Steenkamp [playing for the Bulls now], Junior Pokomela and Jasper Wiese. I know what it’s like – you make a couple of changes to your team and you think you’ve lost your rhythm. Plus to come here they have to spend four/five hours on a bus, like we did going there.

“So it’s not ideal for the Cheetahs and if there is rain as forecast then I think they may be vulnerable at forward. But I’m also wary of them because they are the Currie Cup champions, they are very well coached and they play with tempo and pace. They have such good players that they can do the same game-plan even if they’re missing a lot of guys, and they play with a lot of pride,” White said.

The Cheetahs also had their challenge for the Super Rugby Unlocked title made more difficult by Covid-19 and coach Hawies Fourie has made no bones about his team wanting to launch their defence of the Currie Cup crown in style, after they had a bye on the opening weekend.

White is also resting some first-choice players like wing Travis Ismaiel, scrumhalf Ivan van Zyl, lock Ruan Nortje and tighthead Trevor Nyakane, but he has full confidence in the youngsters replacing them. With one eye firmly on a European future, the likes of wing Marco Jansen van Vuren, lock Sintu Manjezi, centre Marnus Potgieter and props Gerhard Steenekamp and Jan-Hendrik Wessels will want to start long and successful careers at Loftus Versfeld.

If White is correct and the Bulls do get the ascendancy up front, then their brilliant loose trio of Vermeulen, Van Staden and Botha can do serious damage and the Bulls have the backline to capitalise.

Teams

Bulls: Kurt-Lee Arendse, David Kriel, Stedman Gans, Cornal Hendricks, Marco Jansen van Vuren, Morné Steyn, Embrose Papier, Duane Vermeulen (c), Arno Botha, Marco van Staden, Walt Steenkamp, Sintu Manjezi, Marcel van der Merwe, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp. Replacements – Corniel Els, Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Trevor Nyakane, Ruan Nortje, Nizaam Carr, Ivan van Zyl, Chris Smith, Marnus Potgieter. 

Cheetahs: Clayton Blommetjies, Rhyno Smith, Howard Mnisi, Frans Steyn, Rosko Specman, Tian Schoeman, Tian Meyer, Jeandré Rudolph, Victor Sekekete, Andisa Ntsila, Carl Wegner (captain), Ian Groenewald, Khutha Mchunu, Reinach Venter, Boan Venter. Replacements – Jacques du Toit, Cameron Dawson, Erich de Jager, Chris Massyn, George Cronjé, Ruben de Haas, Reinhardt Fortuin, William Small-Smith.

Kickoff: 4.30pm.

Perhaps we should blame it on a night on the tiles or Wacky Wednesday, but reports on Thursday that a majority of the Cricket South Africa interim board were opposed to the decision to suspend company secretary Welsh Gwaza defied belief.

Are we supposed to believe that the independent chairman, Justice Zak Yacoob, a former judge of the Constitutional Court, over-rode a democratic vote of the board and went with a minority view?

We know that previous CSA boards have lied about decisions being unanimous when they were not. Or maybe they just struggled with the meaning of the word ‘unanimous’. But this interim board, made up of three directors serving the vested interests of the Members Council, three from the vested interests of the South African Cricketers Association (the players’ union) and Sascoc, and three independents works on majority vote.

It is the only way they can balance all those vested interests and Yacoob undoubtedly knows this is the only way they will be able to fulfil their mandate from the sports minister. Or is Yacoob suddenly not the upstanding bastion of he law he has always been before?

And the interim board have admitted that there were differences of opinion, but it is believed the division only involves a couple of members.

Anyone who has read the Fundudzi Forensic Report can see there is clearly a prima facie case against Gwaza that needs answering; he misled the Board on several occasions. And there is also skulduggery that went on in his office that is not in the Fundudzi Report but of which members of the interim board are well aware.

And then also on Thursday, the acting CEO, Kugandrie Govender, a great ally of Gwaza’s on the CSA Exco, joined him in the dog box because Clive Eksteen, the former head of sales and sponsor relations, had his dismissal in June deemed unlawful by the CCMA.

Apart from yet more legal fees – Gwaza has been directing millions of Rands the way of Bowmans Gilfillan, his former employers, in recent months – CSA are now facing a hefty damages bill. Govender was Eksteen’s line manager and gave evidence against him at the CCMA. Evidence which Eksteen contested and now that he has won, the spotlight will fall on Govender and her evidence.

Former chief financial officer Naasei Appiah and fired CEO Thabang Moroe are also contesting their dismissals but judging by the contents of the Fundudzi Report, the chances of them winning are about as good as the chances of Yacoob having gone rogue and becoming a dictator who wants to take control of cricket.

In the midst of all the legal wrangles the interim board has to sort out, the huge issue of transformation in the national team has once again reared its ferocious head. The previous board approved the increased quotas demanded by the likes of Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, the independent director who arrived out of the blue, became a powerful figure extremely quickly and has now thankfully disappeared almost as rapidly.

The interim board has now suspended those targets, meaning the Proteas will continue, in the meantime, to play under the same targets, to be averaged out over a season, as last summer.

The problem with the revised targets is that they were formulated without any input from the people on the ground – the coaches and selectors who have to implement them and the players who have to live and work under them. The Cricket Capturers, much like the State Capturers, have done well to hitch themselves to the transformation train, but the absence of any meaningful plan to actually change the game from the grassroots up means it is all just a cynical exercise in ticking the box at Proteas level and gaining the approval of the politicians.

The issue of quotas is a highly complex one and the vital thing is for those who are most affected by them – the players, coaches and selectors – to have the input they deserve.

The administrators in their ivory towers who proposed the increased national team quota of seven Blacks per XI, including three Black Africans, might be surprised by what they hear.

As one Black African Protea said to me this week: “I’m no house n****, but where are they going to find the players to reach those targets?!”