Ken Borland

Cricket South Africa (CSA) chief executive Thabang Moroe could still obtain the selection veto powers he is seeking for himself, with the matter to be decided at the next board meeting, in Johannesburg on May 17, CSA themselves confirmed on Monday.

The Rapport newspaper reported at the weekend that Moroe’s bid to be able to veto Proteas selections was initially approved by the board last June, when president Chris Nenzani was absent as he was attending a family funeral. The report stated Nenzani then removed the proposal from the agenda at the next meeting he attended.

But a CSA spokesman told The Citizen on Monday that Moroe’s suggestion is still on the table.

“A final decision on that has not been made and it’s currently sitting with the board. A final decision on that will be made in the next board meeting. Confirmed it with Thabang now”, the spokesman said in a message.

While Moroe stated publicly two weeks ago that there would be no quotas in terms of selection for the World Cup squad that will be announced on Thursday, according to ICC rules, South Africa can make changes to their squad up until May 23.

A return to a high-ranking CSA official having a selection veto would take the organisation back to the dark days of 2008, when the veto was abolished after several controversial meddlings by then president Norman Arendse, who is now believed to be advising Moroe.

The players’ union, the South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA), were at the forefront of efforts to do away with the veto and on Monday they were still under the impression that the CSA board had shelved the idea. If Moroe is given a selection veto, it is certain to only add further strain to the relationship between the players and CSA.

“A veto used to exist but the players and SACA campaigned for a number of years to get rid of it and CSA eventually did. We opposed the veto on the basis that nobody should be involved in selection except the selectors and the selectors should not be micro-managed. Any decision to reintroduce the veto would be a concern for us collectively,” SACA chief executive Tony Irish explained to The Citizen on Monday.

What has worked well for both the Proteas and CSA over the last decade has been a system where the national selection panel must know and comply with CSA’s policies, especially those regarding transformation, and the board have recourse if they are unhappy because they appoint the selectors on an annual basis. Whether the Proteas have reached transformation targets is also judged over the whole season and across all three formats.

The Proteas players will have no trust in a selection system that allows an administrator to arbitrarily intervene in order to add whatever player he fancies at the time or remove a cricketer he does not personally like.

Herschelle Gibbs was South Africa’s leading run-scorer as they dominated the group stages of the 1999 World Cup, only to fall agonizingly short in their notorious tied semi-final against Australia, but he believes all-rounders were the key to their success in England that year and that is an area that has the potential to be a problem for the Proteas as the tournament returns there next year.

South Africa had Lance Klusener, named the player of the tournament, backed by Jacques Kallis and Shaun Pollock, in 1999 and the current Proteas obviously don’t have all-rounders of that proven quality and experience at the moment.

“In 1999 we had three all-rounders and that led us to probably our best chance of winning the World Cup. A strong one-day team always has good all-rounders, but I think at the moment, all-rounders are our biggest headache. The depth is not quite there; we have Chris Morris in and out the side and Andile Phehlukwayo and Wiaan Mulder blow a bit hot and cold for me.

“So that’s going to be a big question mark for the selectors. Conditions in England could suit a guy like Vernon Philander perfectly. He can bat, but there are question marks over how effective he is in limited-overs cricket. Otherwise the bowlers are pretty sorted and it’s nice to see Dale Steyn firing again, bowling in the late 140s and looking great,” Gibbs told Saturday Citizen at the Sanlam Cancer Challenge, where he was playing golf as one of the celebrity delegates.

Like politicians trying to impress the voters, those players who are not assured of their places in the World Cup squad will be mounting one last desperate push to impress the selectors in the next couple of months. Gibbs believes there are still enough matches before the World Cup to sort out any deficiencies in the team.

“There are enough ODIs before the World Cup and there’s still a chance for some new faces. We’re probably also still lacking a bit in specialist batting depth. Dean Elgar was given a chance, but the selectors have probably decided that he’s not a one-day player. So there’s more pressure on Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock, especially with AB de Villiers having retired, and Quinny is going to have to bear the brunt of the run-scoring I think.

“Our variety in the attack is also a bit short – Ngidi, Steyn, Rabada and Phehlukwayo are all right-armers, and then there’s Tabraiz Shamsi or Imran Tahir and JP Duminy to bowl a bit. So we might lack a bit of variety, but we might get away with it if the overhead conditions help us. But the all-rounders and the top-order are the two main question marks for me,” Gibbs said.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20181013/282428465149110

The message from captain AB de Villiers to Quinton de Kock was a simple instruction to try and not lose his wicket; the wicketkeeper/batsman did that and delivered so much more as his unbeaten century marshalled South Africa to a big total and ensured they capitalised on the great work of centurions Stephen Cook and Hashim Amla on the first day.

De Kock blasted 129 not out off 128 balls and ensured that the last three wickets added 139 runs, a memorable way to notch your maiden Test century and exactly what South Africa want from their wicketkeeper and number seven batsman.

“AB said I must just try and get a not out and the game changed after we lost Temba Bavuma. I decided that if there was any width, I would throw my hands at it and I was quite relieved to get my first Test hundred. But it’s just a start.

“After I was dropped the first time, I focused on stepping back into my game plan and I took a bit of a liking to Moeen Ali’s spin and tried to take him on. I’ve faced a lot of spin with the SA A side and in franchise cricket I also target the spinners, I don’t want to let them bog me down,” De Kock said on Saturday after England had reached 138 for two at stumps in reply to South Africa’s first innings of 475.

Although it is way too early to place the burden on De Kock of comparing him to Adam Gilchrist, the role the great Australian wicketkeeper/batsman pioneered is exactly what South Africa are banking on their 23-year-old wicketkeeper/batsman producing in the future.

“They used to call me ‘Gilly’ at the Highveld Lions and it’s falling into place for me at the moment. But it’s not just him I’d like to emulate, players like Matt Prior and Brad Haddin were also key batsmen who England and Australia relied on,” a typically unfazed De Kock said.

Since being dropped in Bangladesh after making a duck, part of a miserable 2015 that included his wretched World Cup and injuries, De Kock is hard on the comeback trail.

“It’s not a bad way to start the year after being dropped last year because I just wasn’t scoring runs. I was told to go and score some runs, but I was in a bad space then and I just didn’t care. I didn’t enjoy cricket for a bit, but life goes on and I carried on working, and then things change. I made runs and was enjoying the game again. It all fell into place, it was just about getting runs again and mentally, I was happy again,” De Kock explained.

England all-rounder Ben Stokes, who took four for 86 in South Africa’s innings, said they were hoping captain Alastair Cook could go on to a really big score on Sunday, having reached 67 not out at the close of the second day, his first half-century of the series.

“I think all three results are still possible and we were able to get through a tough patch with the bat this afternoon, we’ve done well to be only two down. Alastair has obviously struggled in this series and when he got to fifty it was almost like he’d scored a hundred because we were all so pleased for him. Hopefully he can go on tomorrow and make a big one.

“On the first morning the pitch was very slow but as the sun shone on it, it quickened up and there was a bit more pace in it today as well. But Nick Compton was very unlucky to get out to a ball that rolled, it’s the first one that’s misbehaved. Hopefully there aren’t any more on that length,” Stokes said.

Having reprieved both Stephen Cook (on 47) and Amla (on 5) on the first day, England dropped De Kock three times on the second day – on 28, 80 and 90.

“We realise we let them massively off the hook, allowed them to get that big score. Especially Amla, he really made us pay, good players do that. We expect to take those half-chances, but you just have to put it behind you and get on with it,” Stokes said.

Much like De Kock has put the first half of 2015 behind him and got on with scoring runs in his own uncomplicated, fluent manner as he enjoyed his day in the sun at Centurion on Saturday.

As cricket lovers we often talk about the old days and how our heroes of yesteryear would have fared in modern-day cricket, especially the new white-ball formats which have changed the face of the game.

The more nerdy of us love compiling teams that would never take the field but oh, how we wish they could have. One of the sides that is often discussed is the best T20 XI made up of players who never had the opportunity to play the shortest format of the game. In other words, all cricketers before 2003.

One of my selections would be Chris Wilkins, the former Natal, Eastern Province, Border and Derbyshire batsman who sadly passed away at the start of the week, to open the batting. Members of the younger generation need not feel like total dorks if they have never heard of the man, because he never played for South Africa. But he did command immense respect from his peers and many of them I have spoken to agree that one of the 1966 SA Cricket Annual Cricketers of the Year would make their XI for players who never had the opportunity to play T20.

Opening the batting in limited-overs cricket these days is all about being able to hit boundaries against the new ball by playing orthodox cricket strokes, and Wilkins was a master of that. There is many a former provincial fast bowler who is still bearing the scars of being belted over the covers or straight back over his head to the boundary in the first over of the innings, whether in first-class cricket or limited-overs, by Wilkins.

An average in the mid-30s is not exceptional by today’s standards, but a word of warning to those wanting to cast aspersions on the quality of cricket back then. Because it was three-day cricket, most of the pitches were pretty green and result-friendly, and it was probably the greatest era of South African fast bowling in terms of depth – the likes of Vince van der Bijl, Mike Procter, Garth le Roux, Clive Rice, Eddie Barlow, Rupert Hanley, Kenny Watson and Stephen Jefferies et al were all at the peak of their powers. Back then, only a handful of batsmen would ever average more than 40.

Wilkins was held in high enough esteem to be chosen for the Rest of the World XI that toured England in 1970, making an impact with a swashbuckling 73-minute century, the fastest of the season, against the T.N. Pearce XI at Scarborough.

As well as Wilkins, is not the thought of Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards, Procter and Adrian Kuiper playing T20 cricket a mouthwatering one? Lance Klusener is not eligible for this fantasy XI because he played 53 domestic T20 games, but there would not be a more sought after player in any of the world leagues if ‘Zulu’ were in his prime now.

All those wonderful fast bowlers would have been great to see in T20 as well, but, in these days of spinners being a strike bowler in white-ball cricket, there is not too much by way of South African slow bowlers to choose from. Leg-spinner Denys Hobson would probably have been the Imran Tahir of his day, although the Western Province star would probably have been a better Test bowler.

There are many international bowlers from the 1970s and 80s who are extremely thankful that there was not a T20 format back then during the heyday of the West Indies … bowling to Viv Richards would certainly not have been for the fainthearted.

There is a T20 tournament on the go at the moment in Abu Dhabi, with South Africa’s champions, the Titans, taking part. It seems to be very much a made-for-TV event, judging by a great paucity of spectators in a grandiose stadium. A triumph for the Titans would be nice, but hardly memorable given the gimmicky feel of the event and tiny boundaries that really make it into a slogging contest.

What is clear, however, is that South Africa has a great deal of top-class talent and it was a bittersweet feeling to see Colin Ingram and Kyle Abbott starring for a team from Afghanistan of all places.