Ken Borland

The fact that almost all of them have international playing experience was first and foremost in fast bowler Lutho Sipamla’s mind this week when he spoke about the effect the Proteas coaching staff have had on his own fledgling career for South Africa.

Since making his Proteas debut in a T20 against Pakistan at the Wanderers in February last year, the 22-year-old Sipamla has played four ODIs and five T20 Internationals. For all his inexperience, he has been quick to recognise the value of all the experience around him.

“Guys like Charl Langeveldt, Mark Boucher, Jacques Kallis and Justin Ontong have walked the talk, they know what it takes to be a good international cricketer. It’s awesome to have them as coaches because they have been in our shoes and they have done it all before. So they can relate to what we are going through because they’ve experienced it themselves.

“Someone like Charl, when it comes to bowling at the death, he’s had to defend six or seven runs to win the game and done that. So he knows the processes involved, he’s been successful and he passes that on to the bowlers,” Sipamla said.

Bowling coach Langeveldt played 72 ODIs, but the respect he is held in by local cricketers suggests he should have played many more; head coach Boucher played 147 Tests and 295 ODIs, batting consultant Kallis is South Africa’s most-capped player ever with 166 Test and 328 ODI appearances, and fielding coach Ontong was unfortunate to play just two Tests, 14 ODIs and 28 T20 Internationals.

Last year was a pretty terrible one for the Proteas, but there were signs of the tide starting to turn when they whitewashed a powerful Australian side 3-0 in the ODI series in February/March.

“It was a great experience making my debut in the limited-overs format and it was a really good win over Australia, a wonderful experience and a great time for me. We had a very young squad but we all worked together towards our goal and gelled nicely. We all knew what we had to do, everyone knew their roles and we were able to execute.

“In that campaign we all grew as individuals and players, and it was something special to be part of it. And now we’ve had a long wait to play again and I’m really excited just to get back to practice and crafting my skills again. As my Dad always tells me when I’m having a tough time, I must just make sure I keep working hard and make sure I’m still doing all the right things,” Sipamla said.

Being unable to go out for dinner at a restaurant or a weekend braai with family and friends is what Reeza Hendricks says bugs him the most about Lockdown, but what’s also eating away at the 30-year-old Proteas batsman is the feeling that he has not yet been able to fulfil his potential at international level.

Hendricks has been one of the key figures in the dominance of the Central Gauteng Lions in recent seasons, but he has only played 21 ODIs, averaging 26.68, since making his debut in August 2018. He made his debut in T20 internationals in November 2014 though and has enjoyed more success in that format with four half-centuries in 23 innings and a strike-rate of 120. It’s a far cry from his domestic performances though, in which he averages 40.65, with five centuries in 30 innings, for the Lions in 50-over cricket and 36.50 in T20. His four-day average for the franchise is 36.72.

“My greatest ambition is to fulfil my talent to the best of my ability. I want to play consistently at the highest level in all three formats, winning trophies would be an added bonus. I feel I played fairly well domestically last season, contributing in all formats, but it was an emotional roller-coaster season personally, with a lot of ups and downs, but I guess sport is full of those.

“I was very disappointed in the international set-up, I only got a handful of opportunities and I couldn’t understand why. The disappointment was something I had to deal with and I learnt a lot about myself last season, how to overcome difficult situations and challenges, how to adapt. You have to keep being persistent to get through them and stay on a level because one day you’re a hero, the next you’re not,” Hendricks said.

The Kimberley product was the most unfortunate player not to go to the World Cup last year and he only featured in three ODIs against England and three T20s for the Proteas last season. He averaged 26 in the ODIs and had scores of 6 and 28 in T20s against India and 14 versus Australia.

Nevertheless, he is hungry to make next season really count. Hendricks still dreams of playing Test cricket and he has collaborated with Lions batting coach Justin Sammons in sharpening his technique.

“There’s always pressure, it comes from within. So I’m looking forward to next season, I’ve set goals and I just want to do well for whatever team I play for, contribute as well as I possibly can. I haven’t played Tests yet but I’ve been working hard on my red-ball cricket, I’ve felt I’ve done fairly well for the Lions in the last three years, I’ve made good progress.

“I would describe myself as being a traditional, textbook, classical batsman with a dash of flair, and I’ve developed a good relationship with Justin Sammons at the Lions. For anything technical or cricket-related, he’s someone I’ve trusted. I haven’t done too much technical work, it’s just touching up those areas where I’m lacking. Things like my movements towards the ball,” Hendricks said.

Aiden Markram said on Monday that his first objective is to get back into the Proteas team and then he can start thinking about the possibility of captaining the national side again, a prospect that always seems to be in the conversation when the 25-year-old batsman is mentioned.

Markram has already had a taste of the Proteas captaincy, leading the team in five ODIs against India in early 2018. But South Africa were hammered 4-1 with a weakened team and it was a premature move, given that he had only played one ODI previously, against Bangladesh in East London, that stunted the progress of one of the best young batsmen in the country and he has only averaged 27.95 in the 26 50-over internationals he has played. His Test average has also dropped to 38.48 since then.

Since his pair against India in Pune in October 2019, Markram has played just one Test, due to injury, and there are even some question marks over his place in that team after Pieter Malan did reasonably well in his place against England.

“My main focus is to get back in the side and stay on the field. My main ambitions are for the Proteas to be the number one Test side and to establish myself in the white-ball Proteas team, it’s a dream to be in a World Cup winning team. I really enjoy the responsibility that comes with captaincy and I would love to do it, but I’ve never given it much thought.

“It’s more like a shot in the dark for me at the moment, although my name has been put in the hat by writers, so it’s something to consider. I would give an arm and a leg to do it, but it’s not the be-all and end-all for me, I don’t want to become desperate for it. It would be a great honour, amazing if it happens, but we have plenty of leaders in the squad,” Markram said from his Pretoria home on Monday.

The lack of international runs in the last couple of years – he has gone 39 innings for the Proteas across all formats without a century – has obviously weighed on Markram’s mind and the Titans star said the Covid-19 Lockdown had allowed him to work on the mental side of the game for when the return of cricket happens.

“It was very frustrating to miss quite a bit of the last season and the most challenging thing while being out of the game was not to let your mind run off, that’s when you tend to overthink and delve too deep into things. I tried to keep my mind calm and strong and the mental game is the difference between the Greats and the Goods in international cricket.

“It’s very difficult to keep in a positive frame of mind as a batsman because generally you fail more than you succeed and you’ve got to deal with that and keep positive. I try to feed off my past successes, that keeps my belief going, but I have certainly doubted myself, especially when you’re out of form. After a few bad knocks, people want you out of the team and the last year was quite a struggle,” Markram said.

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.