Ken Borland

Sixes are a relatively old concept in cricket, with the famous Hong Kong Sixes being held since 1992, but they have never really caught on in South Africa. That could be about to change thanks to Titans cricket introducing the Global Softech Sixes, to be hosted by SuperSport Park from September 4-7.

Sixes are certainly part of mainstream cricket elsewhere in the world, with Glenn Maxwell, currently Australia’s most destructive batsman, the player of the tournament in the 2010 Hong Kong Sixes, while Pakistan star Umar Akmal has won the same award in the last two editions at Kowloon.

The Titans see the Global Softech Sixes as an ideal starter for the 2014/15 season and as a chance to develop the game elsewhere in Africa as Tanzania, Uganda, Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya have all been invited to take part.

The first two days of the competition will be played as an inter-franchise event, with the Titans, Cape Cobras, Dolphins, Knights, Highveld Lions and Warriors all taking part, before a South African side joins the five other countries in a two-day international competition.

Titans CEO Jacques Faul, whose brainchild the event is, promised plenty of fun and games over the four days in Centurion.

“It’s a unique opportunity to pioneer our sport to a younger generation and bring in a fun element, as well as embracing our neighbours from the broader African continent. We’re planning some new and fresh ideas, so the tournament will evolve and hopefully develop into a full circuit one day,” Faul said at the unveiling of the tournament at SuperSport Park yesterday.

Each match will be completed quickly in 40 minutes and smaller boundaries will add to the frenetic action.

Faul said he envisaged ticket prices being the same as for domestic cricket and there will be full coverage of all four days on SuperSport “so we can reach as far as we can with this new concept”.

The Titans CEO is hopeful that a posse of Proteas will take part in the pre-season event, even though South Africa’s ODI squad will be completing their triangular series in Zimbabwe that weekend.

The Global Softech Sixes do, however, have the full backing of Cricket South Africa, according to their CEO, Haroon Lorgat.

“Jacques has been working on this for a long time and it’s an opportunity to develop the sport as well as provide some fun and entertainment. We wish the Titans well with their initiative, we are very pleased to be associated with it and we will provide whatever support is needed. It’s probably the right time for Cricket South Africa to become more involved with Africa cricket,” Lorgat said.

Momentum’s tremendous support for South African cricket continues with the last official fixtures of the 2013/14 season when the National Club Championships are held in and around Pretoria from today to Monday.

Northerns Premier League winners Assupol Tukkies are the defending champions and will be aiming for a hat-trick of titles, as well as the R50 000 prizemoney for the winning club.

The University of Pretoria may be bringing a new-look side to the club championships – missing nine of last year’s triumphant squad – but they remain in impressive form and full of confidence.

Tukkies not only won the Northerns Premier League in convincing fashion but are also on their way to London in July as South Africa’s representatives in the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals, having beaten the University of Stellenbosch 3-0 in the local T20 finals in Pretoria two weeks ago.

But Tukkies coach Pierre de Bruyn says his team cannot afford to rest on their laurels this week, with Maties one of their main challengers in Section Two of the competition.

“We’ve won the last two club champs and have been unbeaten in both, which means there’s a lot of pressure on us this year. We’ll have to start from scratch and put the Red Bull competition behind us, which was a different format anyway.

“We’ve set the benchmark the last couple of years in the club champs, but the teams chasing us are meeting that now and we need to be even better. The other teams are getting closer and closer and it will come down to who plays the better cricket on the day. Every day is highly important and we can’t afford any slip-ups, you can’t have any bad days,” De Bruyn told The Pretoria News yesterday.

The other teams in Tukkies’ section are Cape Town Cricket Club (WP), Kempton Park (Easterns), Madibaz George (SWD) and United, the Border champions, while the sides competing in Section One are Crusaders (KZN), Madibaz PE (EP), North-West University Pukke, University of Free State, University of Johannesburg (Gauteng) and West End from Griquas.

The Tukkies squad has been boosted by the presence of all-rounder Graeme van Buuren, the Titans’ Newcomer of the Year award-winner, and the hero of the University of Pretoria’s triumph in last season’s National Club Championships.

The triumphant SA U19 captain, Aiden Markram, as well as Corbin Bosch, the fast bowler who took four for 15 to win the Player of the Match award in the ICC Junior World Cup last month, are also in the Tukkies squad, but the hard-hitting Theunis de Bruyn has been forced to withdraw due to illness.

Left-arm paceman Vincent Moore is also unavailable as he does not play in the Northerns league, but Tukkies do have the services of experienced non-students like Sean Nowak and Gerhard Linde, both of whom are pace bowlers.

The Tukkies quest for a hat-trick of titles begins today against Kempton Park Cricket Club, the club champions from Northerns’ franchise partners Easterns, at the Tshwane University of Technology Oval.

Competing teams

Section 1: Crusaders (KZN), Madibaz PE (EP), NWU Pukke (North-West), University of Free State (Free State), University of Johannesburg (Gauteng), West End (Griquas).

Section 2: Cape Town (WP), Kempton Park (Easterns), Madibaz George (SWD), Tuks (Northerns), United (Border), University of Stellenbosch (Boland).

Tukkies squad: Aiden Markram, Gerry Pike, Tian Koekemoer, Sean Dickson, Heinrich Klaasen, Graeme van Buuren, Johan Wessels, Tertius Gouws, Sean Nowak, Ruben Claasen, Gerhard Linde, Corbin Bosch, Murray Coetzee.

Fixtures

Today: Section 1 – West End v UJ (Mamelodi Oval); Pukke v Crusaders (Memorial Park); Madibaz PE v UFS (Tuks Oval). Section 2 – Tukkies v Kempton Park (TUT Oval); Madibaz George v Cape Town CC (Sinovich Park); Maties v United (Irene Villagers).

Tomorrow: Section 1 – West End v Crusaders (Memorial Park); UJ v UFS (Tuks Oval); Pukke v Madibaz PE (St Albans). Section 2 – Tukkies v Cape Town CC (Sinovoch Park); Kempton Park v United (Irene Villagers); Madibaz George v Maties (TUT Oval).

Friday: Section 1 – West End v UFS (Laudium Oval); Crusaders v Madibaz PE (Mamelodi Oval); UJ v Pukke (St Albans). Section 2 – Tukkies v United (Sinovich Park); Cape Town CC v Maties (TUT Oval); Kempton Park v Madibaz George (Irene Villagers).

Saturday: Section 1 – West End v Madibaz PE (St Albans); UFS v Pukke (Groenkloof); Crusaders v UJ (Laudium Oval). Section 2 – Tukkies v Maties (Irene Villagers); United v Madibaz George (TUT Oval); Cape Town CC v Kempton Park (Sinovich Park).

Sunday: Section 1 – West End v Pukke (Mamelodi Oval); Madibaz PE v UJ (Tuks Oval); UFS v Crusaders (St Albans). Section 2 – Tukkies v Madibaz George (TUT Oval); Maties v Kempton Park (Sinovich Park); United v Cape Town CC (Irene Villagers).

Monday: Final – Winner Section 1 v Winner Section 2 (SuperSport Park).               

Triumphant Assupol Tukkies coach Pierre de Bruyn believes the inaugural Red Bull Campus Cricket South Africa Finals have provided “a defining moment” for amateur cricket in the country.

“This tournament has been really refreshing for amateur cricket, it’s exciting and something for young cricketers to really look forward to. I believe this is a defining moment in amateur cricket because we’ve started to question the standard of club cricket, but varsity cricket can now open more avenues.

“It’s exciting and very necessary, an awesome event for young cricketers and an extraordinary experience for them,” De Bruyn said after his team had wrapped up a 3-0 series whitewash over the Steinhoff Maties at the University of Pretoria.

Maties secured a moral victory in the last game as they put Tukkies under pressure before a late comeback with the ball by the national club champions secured victory, and captain Emile Kriek said his team had been a bit overawed by the occasion.

“It’s an amazing event, an awesome concept and the atmosphere was amazing too. It’s what university cricket needs and we need to get it on TV. I’m lucky to have played first-class cricket and some white-ball cricket, but not many of our guys have and it was all a bit much for them in the first game. Losing that then made it very hard to get momentum in a best-of-three, but in the third game we just had nobody to finish off.

“Our okes had their heads in the clouds a bit, you’ve got to keep doing the basics and Tukkies did the basics a lot better than us, especially their death bowling and individual decision-making. They’re a well-trained and well-drilled team,” Kriek said.

The Maties captain said his team had particularly struggled to score runs up front.

“The starts we had – in the first six overs we’d lose three wickets – were a problem. Obviously we’re disappointed, but the tournament has been a big positive for us. Hopefully we will come back and do well in this competition because you have not seen the best of us,” were his parting words.

De Bruyn said his team had been “ruthless and clinical”.

“From the start we said we wanted to dominate this event and use home ground advantage and we were ruthless and clinical. I’m extremely proud of how the guys conducted themselves, we controlled the tournament and achieved our goals,” De Bruyn said.

The former Titans, Dolphins and Norfolk all-rounder said his sights are now set on achieving similar results at the Red Bull Campus Cricket World Finals in England in July.

“We’ve showed we mean business and we’re going to go to England with purpose. We don’t know what to expect in terms of the opposition, but I played in the UK for 10 seasons, so I know how to prepare and play in those conditions,” De Bruyn said.

University Sport South Africa cricket chairman Riaan Osman said his organisation were delighted to endorse Red Bull Campus Cricket.

“It’s a brilliant innovation for USSA cricket and the student cricket family. We’ve been working for quite some time on a different platform for our student cricketers and hopefully this will be the catalyst for something like that, something new,” Osman said.

As a boy growing up in the sub-tropical agricultural town of Tzaneen, Tian Koekemoer loved Jonty Rhodes and Dale Steyn and was used to enjoying plenty of success as one of the most talented cricketers at Merensky High School.

Despite Steyn and fellow pace bowlers Marchant de Lange and Ethy Mbhalati all coming from the Limpopo province at the northern edge of South Africa, the region is the poorest in the country, a large rural expanse of mostly tribal area, and is not known for producing many cricketers.

So despite dominating at local level and starring for the Limpopo U19 team, Koekemoer knew that he still needed to be really tested as a cricketer. That has come since he enrolled at the University of Pretoria and studied BA Languages, and started playing for the Assupol Tukkies team.

It’s a star-studded Tukkies team, the most powerful club side in the country, and Koekemoer often has to wait for an opportunity to bat or bowl.

In the Red Bull Campus Cricket Finals against Steinhoff Maties, he once again sat patiently waiting for his chance to shine, bowling just two overs in each of the first two games and not getting the chance to bat.

And then the final game gave him his chance. Tukkies finally batted first, and the absence of an unwell Aiden Markram and a few errors by the top-order gave him his chance.

Koekemoer responded with a crucial innings of 19 off 11 balls that lifted Tukkies to a competitive total of 144 for nine, and he then ensured that it would be a day to really remember as he claimed three wickets to stop a strong Maties chase and win the man of the match award.

“I don’t often have to come in under pressure moments, but today I had to and I liked the challenge,” Koekemoer said after the game.

“There are only a few good cricketers in Limpopo, but in Pretoria you’re up against the whole Northerns Premier League and it was an eye-opener. I haven’t really been exposed to that level of cricket, you get used to being the only good player in your team, but this really pushes you.”

Another measure of how well Koekemoer adapts to whatever life throws at him is the fact that he has only been bowling seam since last July.

Prior to that he was an off-spinner, but he broke his finger and was unable to grip the ball and obtain as much turn as previously, so he changed to pace.