Ken Borland

It’s always sad when the captain of the opposing team misses the tour due to injury before it has even started, especially when it is a classy rugby player such as Alun-Wyn Jones. I was curious about the veteran Welsh lock’s second British and Irish Lions tour to South Africa because his 2009 venture ended in rather inelegant fashion.

The last time I saw Jones in the flesh – and it was a lot of flesh – was when he was running around butt naked in the Sandton Convention Centre and then proceeded to urinate under one of the banquet tables. It was the final night of the tour and there had been an official farewell function, after which the Lions retired to their own after-party.

Certain members of the media had their own ‘little’ shindig after the formalities as well, and I was wandering back out of the building when I heard noise coming from one of the halls, poked my head through the door and saw the unforgettable sight of Jones letting loose.

It was one of the abiding memories of the five weeks I spent covering that Lions tour, from the sea to the Highveld, and what an experience it was.

The tour kicked off on May 30 at the Royal Bafokeng Stadium in Rustenburg as the Lions played against a Highveld XV, made up of players from the central unions excluding the Gauteng Lions and the Bulls. After playing the Golden Lions and the Free State Cheetahs in Johannesburg and Bloemfontein respectively, the Lions then decamped to the coast for a string of three matches in Durban, Cape Town and Port Elizabeth before the first Test at Kings Park on June 20.

The Lions had to return to a sodden Newlands three days later to draw 13-13 with the Emerging Springboks and then the last two Tests were played at Loftus Versfeld and Ellis Park.

There was always a sea of red spectators in the stadiums and most of those jolly travellers then drank their fill in whatever establishments were nearby the match venues. I remember after the Lions beat the Southern Kings 20-8, all the pubs along the beachfront in Port Elizabeth ran dry. Even the Boardwalk Casino ran out of stock.

The wonderful thing about a Lions tour is that when your national team is done facing the best of Great Britain and Ireland on the field, there is always tremendous camaraderie after the game. What could be better than talking rugby with like-minded revellers?

One such occasion did lead to me losing face, however, and I felt as embarrassed as I hope Jones did the next morning.

It was after the Western Province match at Newlands on June 13 and the Cape Town weather was foul on that night too. But nevertheless all the drinking holes along Main Road were packed to the rafters as a crowd of 34 000 poured out of the stadium.

I found myself deep in discussion with a group of people and, pride always coming before a fall, I was very up front that I was covering the entire tour for international news agency Reuters. What an expert I was.

Standing next to me was an interesting fellow who had an unusual accent – either Australian or Kiwi (it was getting late and I wasn’t sure) – for someone watching a British and Irish Lions tour. So I asked hm what an Antipodean was doing following the tour and the words were no sooner out of my mouth when I realised what a complete idiot I was.

Standing next to me was Riki Flutey, the New Zealand-born centre, who had played for the Lions in that very match that night. Fortunately there were some sturdy pillars in this bar/restaurant and I rapidly slid behind the one next to me.

What an expert I was.

Despite that one humiliating moment, it is going to be utterly frustrating not having those crowds on this tour. But we will roar the Springboks along nevertheless, knowing that there will be many thousands of others roaring along the Lions in front of their screens on the other side of the equator.

It should still be a rollicking five weeks of rugby.

John Mogodi of Limpopo, Daniel Govender of KZN, Craig Nel of Mpumalanga, Tebogo Siko of Northerns and Simphiwe Ndzundza of Border are the people elected by the Cricket South Africa Members Council, the body that pushed the sport in this country to the edge of the precipice before eventually seeing some sense, to the new Board that will run cricket.

Of those five, it is fair to say Nel and Siko are the only two who have not been opposed to the efforts of the Interim Board and, by extension, the sports minister, to rescue cricket from being flushed down the toilet. While that reflects on the embarrassing quality of leadership on the Members Council, it is a relief that the new Board appointed this week will be dominated by eight independent directors and there is plenty of leadership, financial and legal expertise and governance experience amongst that lot.

Andrew Hudson, whose post-playing career has been centred on the banking world, is the only director with top-level cricket experience and it perhaps would have been nice if more former players had been appointed.

And the lack of female representation is an even bigger blot on the Board. Independent director Ntambi Ravele and acting chief financial officer Christelle Janse van Rensburg are the only two women out of a board of 15, and that’s even after sports minister Nathi Mthethwa made it clear that he wanted to see a greater push towards gender equality.

It is typical of the double-speak nature of the Members Council that president Rihan Richards should speak of their full commitment to greater female representation and then, when the vote was tied for the fifth non-independent director’s post between Anne Vilas and Simphiwe Ndzundzu, they chose the man.

And Ndzundzu is not just any man. He is president of one of the most dysfunctional provinces on and off the field, and someone who is being investigated over a charge of assault involving the elderly mother of a colleague he had a dispute with as well as a broken arm for his rival’s sister.

And Vilas is not just any woman. Acknowledged as one of the best administrators in South African cricket and very successful in business, as president of Central Gauteng Lions she has overseen their rise to arguably the best team in the country.

So it is fair to say that there will still be small pockets of resistance to progress in South African cricket, but hopefully our cricketing family can start to heal. CSA has been a dysfunctional organisation and the events of the last few years have demoralised so many people involved in the game. Good leadership was replaced by an environment of suspicion.

Hopefully this new Board can bring some much-needed stability after their predecessors did so much to kill the hopes and dreams of young cricket fans. Critical to that becoming a reality is for the right person to be elected chair of the Board and also whoever represents CSA at the International Cricket Council requires much thought.

It’s been a depressing time for those cricket lovers looking for moral leadership as the CSA Board and incompetent Members Council were captured by vested interests and a downright crooked culture developed in the running of the game. But this new, majority independent board will hopefully ensure good governance.

Cricket’s governance issues have, without a doubt, affected the on-field performance of the men’s national team as well, but after a lean period, the victory in the first Test against the West Indies provided some encouraging signs that the Proteas might just be regaining their mojo.

So let the healing begin, and thank you to the six members of the Interim Board for their top-class work which saw their vital task through to completion, shouldering a massive burden in the process.

Kagiso Rabada endured a 39-month break between five-wicket hauls before taking five for 34 on Saturday to wrap up an innings win for the Proteas in the first Test against the West Indies, but the fast bowler said even though he was relieved to end that dry spell, the failure to notch the statistical landmark was not frustrating for him.

“Cricket is a game where you’re measured by the highest accolades like scoring hundreds or taking five and 10-fors, so you always strive to do that, but it’s not like you’re looking for that or desperate for it because sometimes you can bowl really well and not get any wickets. It’s an old cliché but they do tend to repeat themselves.

“Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do the five-for thing for the last couple of years but I knew I just had to be consistent in my preparation. But I am quite relieved to get it, it’s like scoring a hundred, who wouldn’t be happy? I was really glad with my performance, but without the support of my team-mates this wouldn’t have happened.

“With Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje bowling exceptionally well and the batsmen coming to the party and putting runs on the board, this makes it easier for me. I just try and control what I can control and the cricketing gods were smiling at me today,” Rabada said after his 10^th five-wicket haul in just 46 Tests.

He is the seventh South African to join that club and he said the Proteas, by returning to basics and playing as a team, were ruthless as they battered the West Indies into submission.

“This game can be unforgiving but we have just tried to be consistent in our preparation and we’ve established how we want to play. And we stick to that. And if you do that then luck tends to be on your side more often than not. In previous games we were probably lacking in important periods, we let the game slip away. We would be good in patches and at other times quite sloppy.

“We’ve identified the moments in the past when we slackened off and in this Test we kept our foot on the throttle. We are a young team, we are rebuilding, and we will take a lot of confidence from this performance. We must keep building on what we have established in this Test and we will stick to our processes and not take anything for granted,” Rabada said.

Late lapses cost the Sharks victory against the Bulls and the Stormers, and also made their game against the Lions before that closer than it should have been, and that is a key area of improvement coach Sean Everitt is looking for when his team travel to Ellis Park on Saturday for their Rainbow Cup encounter with the Gautengers.

And even though the Sharks are resting several Springboks as per the agreement with SA Rugby, Everitt has been able to name a powerful bench that should be able to have a late impact against the Lions. Their first-choice front row is amongst the replacements, Ruben van Heerden and Thembelani Bholi are seasoned forwards now, centre Jeremy Ward is an exciting runner and scrumhalf Grant Williams’ ability to lift the pace is perhaps his greatest attribute.

“When we played the Lions here at Kings Park, we had a lapse in the last 10 minutes, but the game was basically won. Fez Mbatha, Ox Nche and Thomas du Toit can hopefully be a bit of a bomb squad for us in Joburg and we can finish stronger than we have in the last few weeks, so things have worked out nicely in that regard. We’ve had a good break and have been able to work on the aspects that have let us down,” Everitt said.

The impressive coaching methods of Everitt have seen him create a real family atmosphere within the Sharks squad and he has always focused on ensuring the levels of performance are right rather than results. Now that the Sharks are under pressure to deliver a result against the Lions to keep them contending for the Rainbow Cup final, nothing will change.

“There is pressure to perform in all areas, not just to win. In some games our scrum hasn’t functioned and then our scrum will be good but the lineout fails. Results come with performance, ensuring we get those processes right first; performance goes hand-in-hand with results. We are still in the race and we have played good rugby up there recently.

“The conditions suit the exciting brand of rugby we want to play and in the last 18 months we have got the mental aspect of playing on the Highveld right. We know that the Lions have improved a lot over the last four weeks though, since our last game against them, and I am expecting a tough tussle,” Everitt said.

The Sharks have won their last four matches at Ellis Park, dating back to their defeat in the opening game of Super Rugby in 2018.