Ken Borland

Jack-in-the-box hooker Johan Grobbelaar won his second successive man of the match award as he spearheaded the Bulls’ 34-13 win over Western Province in their Currie Cup match at Newlands on Friday night.

Grobbelaar scored a fine individual try in the first half as the Bulls took the lead for the first time after 14 minutes and just generally popped up everywhere – excellent lineout throwing, winning turnovers, linking with his backs and defending stoutly.

The in-form 23-year-old’s try was accompanied by touchdowns by left wing Richard Kriel, scrumhalf Zak Burger and right wing Cornal Hendricks, as the Bulls were able to celebrate a bonus point win that takes them to the top of the log, where they will stay if the Sharks don’t beat Griquas in Durban on Saturday.

While the Bulls were slick in executing their skills, Western Province certainly pitched up for the game, but a red card to hooker Scarra Ntubeni in the 36^th minute was too high an obstacle for them to get over. At that stage the hosts were only 13-17 down and had been highly competitive as they pushed the Bulls with aggressive defence, strong breakdown work and some excellent play with ball in hand.

Ntubeni was a little high on his tackle on Burger, but there was certainly no intent to target the head, the scrumhalf dipping down as he was tackled from behind and Ntubeni making contact with his neck. There were many who felt a yellow card would have been appropriate.

Western Province’s thoroughly workmanlike display in the first half and some entertaining rugby from the Bulls had made for intriguing rugby; sadly, the second half was to become a rather dull affair as the visitors dominated but could only add two more tries to their tally.

Western Province had put their cards on the table right from the start as, in the first minute, flyhalf Tim Swiel put Johan du Toit into a hole and the flank burst through on an impressive run, before passing inside for scrumhalf Paul de Wet to score.

The Bulls quickly rustled up a response though, courtesy of one of several clever variations they had at the lineout. A high tackle gave them a penalty which they kicked into the WP 22. Grobbelaar threw long, over the back of the lineout to flyhalf Johan Goosen, who made plenty of ground over the advantage line. He was then quickly back up on his feet to get the ball from the next ruck, throwing a long pass out wide to wing Kriel, who had acres of space to go over for the try.

Ironically, Grobbelaar scored his own try 10 minutes later when Western Province had a lineout throw go astray over the back, and the Paarl Gim product brilliantly gathered the ball and knifed through the defence to score.

Playing against 14 men in the second half, the Bulls made a bit of a meal of ramming home their advantage, but credit must go to Western Province for the staunch resistance they put up.

The bonus point try came with just five minutes remaining as replacement scrumhalf Keagan Johannes tried a cross kick that went horribly wrong. But outside centre Lionel Mapoe quickly tidied up and turned it into a great attacking opportunity, freeing up Hendricks on the wing, with the Springbok throwing the dummy and then showing plenty of pace to finish the try.

Scorers

Western Province: Try – Paul de Wet. Conversion – Tim Swiel. Penalties – Swiel (2).

Bulls: Tries – Richard Kriel, Johan Grobbelaar, Zak Burger, Cornal Hendricks. Conversions – Johan Goosen (3), Chris Smith. Penalties – Goosen (2).

Anrich Nortje is the rapidly improving fast bowler who won the Newcomer of the Year award last season for the Proteas, and now on Monday night he was crowned the overall Player of the Year. And the 27-year-old just wants to be the bowler who keeps hitting the top of off stump more than anyone else.

As well as being named the SA Men’s Cricketer of the Year,  Nortje took the titles of Test Cricketer of the Year and the Fans’ Player of the Year, and also shared the prestigious Players’ Player of the Year award with Aiden Markram.

“I was not thinking about winning four awards after such an up-and-down season with Covid and not playing a lot of games. I had a decent season but I’m just very happy to be part of the awards again. I’m quite happy with how I progressed, there were just moments here and there where I needed to lift. I’ve had a short career but there have been a lot of highlights in the Tests.

“I’m looking forward to building on that momentum and I’m very excited about going to the West Indies. I’ve heard a lot of good stories about the place, but I’m not sure if it will suit fast bowling. When you know the conditions aren’t going to suit you, then you just have to concentrate extra hard on the basics, try and hit the top of off stump as often as possible,” Nortje said.

Fellow fast bowler Shabnim Ismail was the SA Women’s Cricketer of the Year and she also sounded like someone who had passed their exams, acknowledging that the 2020/21 season had been a testing one. She was also voted the Players’ Player of the Year and the T20 Cricketer of the Year.

“I’m truly happy with the awards because they show all the hard work behind the scenes has paid off. I was really happy with my performances and I’m just really grateful and happy to win these awards. I put in the hard yards, I was getting career-bests and I’ve done well for the team. I was chuffed with my performances and happy overall.

“I have to give credit to my team-mates because I could not do it without them and our new strength and conditioning coach has helped with my loads and our whole management team is just so positive. We wanted to portray ourselves as a different South African team and I think we did that in the last two series against Pakistan and India. And now hopefully we can win the World Cup,” Ismail said.

Kagiso Rabada and Quinton de Kock, who have dominated the CSA Men’s Cricketer of the Year award in recent years, have both missed out on being nominated for any of the major honours for the last season as the list of nominees for the CSA Awards was announced on Monday.

Fast bowler Rabada, named the Cricketer of the Year in both 2016 and 2018, played just two Tests and two ODIs in the last season and took five wickets at an average of 39.40 in the longer format and two wickets in 50-over cricket. In two T20s, he claimed just one wicket.

2017 and 2020 Cricketer of the Year De Kock, who endured a torrid time with the captaincy, scored just 74 runs in six Test innings, while he only played two ODIs and three T20s last season.

The fact that it was a deeply troubled season for the Proteas is reflected in the fact that the four nominees for the award – Temba Bavuma, Aiden Markram, Anrich Nortje and Rassie van der Dussen – have all never won the main prize before.

Markram (Test & T20), Nortje (Test & ODI) and Van der Dussen (ODI & T20) have all been nominated for two of the other main awards, while Bavuma is on the shortlist for Test Cricketer of the Year, having averaged 50.40 last season.

Markram was the second-highest run-scorer in the four Tests the Proteas played, scoring 36 less than Dean Elgar and averaging 56, while Nortje took twice as many wickets as anyone else – 20 in four matches at an average of 24.85.

Van der Dussen only played two ODIs, but was the leading run-scorer with 183, including a brilliant unbeaten 123 against Pakistan. The three-match series against Pakistan was the only ODI action South Africa saw last season, with their series against England being cancelled due to Covid.

The Proteas Women had a season they could be proud of, however, and fast bowler Shabnim Ismail and batters Lizelle Lee, Sune Luus and Laura Wolvaardt will battle it out for the Women’s Cricketer of the Year title.

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.