Ken Borland

Cricket may be the archetypal English sport, but there is a long history of it being played in Pretoria and one of the earliest mentions of the game in the city was in August 1874 when a Volksraad meeting was interrupted by Jim Nobel, President Burgers’ secretary, slogging a ball through the window of the chamber and narrowly missing the Speaker.

Those early Landvaders almost decided to ban cricket from the city square, but President Burgers and the attorney-general were both lovers of the game and the sport was given a reprieve.

Those pioneering Pretoria cricketers moved to a cattle compound on Widow Hoffman’s farm, in what is now Fountains Valley, in 1882 and their ground became known as Berea Park, where several Pretoria v Potchefstroom matches were held.

There was already a black cricket club playing in Elandsfontein, the Diggers, in 1898 and by 1937 there were more than 50 black clubs spread between Randfontein and Nigel.

Those were the days of the Transvaal Republic and the best cricketers from the Pretoria region would play for Transvaal, until 1937 when North-Eastern Transvaal was included in South African domestic cricket in its own right.

North-Eastern Transvaal’s first first-class match was played in December 1937, in the 25^th edition of the Currie Cup, as they took on Western Province at Berea Park. Lennox Brown, who played in two Tests for South Africa in 1931/32, took five for 54 and William Lance, the father of Tiger, claimed three for 19 as the inexperienced home side limited the powerful Capetonians to just a 10-run first-innings lead.

Brown then top-scored with 42 in the North-Eastern Transvaal second innings, but the debutants ultimately went down by just three wickets.

North-Eastern Transvaal also often played in Benoni, at the same Willowmoore Park ground that has become a Titans stronghold in the present day, but they were considered a second division team and only played in the A Section of the Currie Cup again in 1960/61 and 1967/68.

In 1971, the North-Eastern Transvaal Cricket Union became the Northern Transvaal Cricket Union, and in 1979/80 they returned to the A Division.

But with all the socio-economic problems in South Africa and Berea Park now being nearly a hundred years old, Northerns cricket remained a hospital case and they needed a doctor to steer them into the bright future they now enjoy.

That doctor was chemical engineer Willie Basson and as chairman of the NTCU he began chasing what he would later describe as “a ridiculous dream” in 1981/82 when the search for a new home for the union began.

It was a momentous year on the field as well as the Northerns B side was entered into first-class competition for the first time, playing in the Bowl, and the senior team won for the first time in the A Section as they beat Eastern Province in Port Elizabeth under captain Norman Featherstone. English swing bowler Chris Old took eight wickets in the match and there were important 70s from Rodney Ontong and Vernon du Preez.

And in 1982, former Transvaal stars such as Lee Barnard and Noel Day arrived in Pretoria and would play vital roles in the rise of Northerns cricket. The other major acquisition was that of former New Zealand captain John Reid who was put in charge of the team and proved an inspirational figure working in tandem with captain Barnard.

The move to Centurion Park – the name was chosen after a Name The Ground Competition – happened from 1984/85 and it is the only cricket ground in the world to have given its name to the suburb that sprung up around it. The first match was played on November 15, 1986.

The 1980s was the decade when the rise of Northerns cricket really began and in 1984/85 they played in two of the three domestic finals. They beat Western Province for the first time in the Currie Cup semi-final, thanks to Mandy Yachad’s century and Eric Simons taking seven wickets and scoring a crucial 58.

The elusive first A Section trophy would only come in 1996/97 however, the same year the NTCU became the Northerns Cricket Union, when 59 years of waiting ended with Keith Medlycott and Mark Davis steering them to the Standard Bank League title, Mike Rindel breaking the record for the most number of runs in a season in the day/night competition and Rudi Bryson spearheading the attack.

Limited-overs cricket continued to be the main source of success for Northerns and the Titans franchise as they became known in 2004, with the team winning the 1998/99 Standard Bank League, the Pro20/T20 competition in 2004/05, 2007/08 and 2011/12, and the one-day competition in 2007/08, 2008/09 and 2013/14.

The Titans have won the four-day competition four times – in 2005/06, 2006/07, 2008/09 and 2011/12 .

The Northerns Cricket Union has become a place where the different language groups and races of South Africa pull together for the success of the team, and no franchise won more trophies than the Titans between 2004 and 2014.

This has obviously led to many players from the Pretoria region being selected for the national team and the likes of Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers, Faf du Plessis, Morne Morkel and Paul Harris have been integral to the rise of the Proteas to the number one Test side.

Off the field, the calm, visionary leadership of people like Basson, Alan Jordaan, Richard Harrison, Brandon Foot, Vincent Sinovich, Elise Lombard, Jesse Chellan, and now Jacques Faul, Patricia Kambarami and John Wright has been crucial to the success of the Northerns and Titans teams.

AB de Villiers made it impossible for the International Cricket Council’s enumerators who decide on the nominees for their annual awards to ignore him and South Africa’s ODI captain was yesterday duly announced as one of four candidates for the ICC Cricketer of the Year award as well as being shortlisted in the individual one-day international category.

De Villiers will go up against Australian fast bowler Mitchell Johnson and Sri Lankan run-machines Angelo Mathews and Kumar Sangakkara for the Sir Garfield Sobers Trophy that goes to the best cricketer overall between August 26, 2013 and September 17, 2014.

Fellow South Africans Quinton de Kock and Dale Steyn, as well as Indian batting star Virat Kohli, will be his rivals for the ICC ODI Cricketer of the Year award.

Hopefully the judges will also take into account the fact that De Villiers has been keeping wicket exceptionally well while starring with the bat. Scoring 932 runs in 10 Tests at an average of 54.80 and 963 runs in 20 ODIs at an average of over 60 is great work in anyone’s book.

The fiery Johnson enjoyed a phenomenal haul of 59 wickets from his eight Tests in the period under review, three of which were against world number ones South Africa, while Sangakkara gathered 1502 runs from 11 Tests, with four centuries, and Mathews, who took over the Sri Lankan captaincy from Mahela Jayawardene, averaged 92 in Tests and just under 54 in ODIs.

De Kock’s five centuries in ODIs during the qualifying period, including three in a row against India, made him a certainty for the ODI shortlist but how he was not named amongst the four for the Emerging Player of the Year award is a mystery. Instead Kiwis and Englishmen dominate that category, with Jimmy Neesham, Corey Anderson, Gary Ballance and Ben Stokes nominated.

Steyn ended the visits to the crease of 36 batsmen in 16 ODIs and had an economy rate of just 4.32 runs-per-over, and was selected to the ICC Test Team of the Year for a record seventh successive year, while the honour has gone to De Villiers for the fifth time.

De Kock has joined that duo in the ICC ODI XI of the year to give South Africa equal-most representation with India – captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni, Virat Kohli and Mohammad Shami.

Amazingly, Hashim Amla has failed to crack the nod for any ICC awards this year.

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The Cell C Sharks will play an attacking brand of rugby in next year’s SuperRugby competition because the strength of their squad demands it, new director of rugby Gary Gold told The Citizen yesterday.

Gold will continue the Sharks’ elusive search for a maiden SuperRugby title after one season under Jake White that saw them lose in the semi-finals but also alienate many supporters with a conservative game plan.

The former Springbok assistant coach says, with the talent at their disposal, the Sharks will simply have to be more ambitious. Gold inherits a mighty pack featuring half-a-dozen Springboks and an exciting backline bursting with playmakers like Cobus Reinach, Pat Lambie, Odwa Ndungane, JP Pietersen and Lwazi Mvovo.

“One of the characteristics of a winning team is that they score tries and we’re not going to beat New Zealand teams 9-6 with three penalties, so we have to score tries. It’s easier said than done and I’m not a rugby romantic, but the Sharks are lucky to have a great squad of players so we can aspire to a brand of rugby that means scoring tries.

“We’ll still look to play in the right areas of the field, there will be a level of pragmatism, but our starting point is that we’re going to put a lot of time and energy into our attack so we can score tries. You have to tailor-make your game-plan to the players at your disposal, but with this great squad we simply have to embrace more attacking skill,” Gold said.

Gold, who was appointed by the Sharks two weeks ago, said all the pre-season planning for SuperRugby was in place, with the squad training from November 17-December 17 and then gathering together again on January 5. While the experienced Currie Cup, Premiership and Japanese league coach is inheriting a star-studded squad, he said he will be looking to make small-scale changes.

“There won’t be much recruitment, but there are two or three positions we’ve identified where we need more strength in depth, which will be important when you consider the demands of the competition. Another of the reasons champion teams are successful is that the difference between their first-choice and second-choice player in any position is not so big that it makes a difference to the performance of the team,” Gold said.

The 47-year-old is also a proponent of a rotation policy, which should avoid the burnout that seemed to afflict the Sharks towards the end of this year’s SuperRugby campaign.

“Another characteristic of successful SuperRugby and Premiership sides is that they embrace a rotation policy. A first-choice player can start for three weeks and then you can give him three days off because he knows he’ll be coming off the bench for 30 minutes the next weekend. He knows he’s still the number one in his position but he’ll appreciate the break and will be a better performer when he comes back because of it. I’m personally not a big believer in playing people into the ground,” Gold said.

The new director of rugby confirmed that the three coaches who guided the Sharks through the Currie Cup – Brad Macleod-Henderson, Sean Everitt and Paul Anthony – would serve as his assistants before taking the reins again for next year’s Currie Cup.

With Brendan Venter on board as a consultant and plans to bring an overseas attack consultant to Durban for a short while later this year, Gold is keen on getting different ideas into the system.

“As the director of rugby, it’s very difficult to coach and deal with recruitment, agents or budgets towards the end of the year and I also want to support the junior team coaches. Hopefully I’ll get a really good working relationship going with Brad, Sean and Paul in SuperRugby and I want us to get together with all the coaches, as a group, and shoot the breeze or share ideas. The U19 coach might have ideas that will work with the senior team … ” Gold said.