Ken Borland

Cricket will return to South Africa on Saturday as a new format of the game debuts at SuperSport Park in Centurion when 3TCricket is launched with a match between three teams featuring the best local talent available, and the Proteas’ No.1 limited-overs spinner Tabraiz Shamsi believes it will not only add a fun new dimension to the game but also broaden the thinking of cricketers.

3TCricket involves three teams of eight competing with each other at the same time, with each team batting for six overs against each opponent. A total of 36 overs – 12 overs per side – will be played after the action gets underway, broadcast live by SuperSport, from 11am.

The players had a practice game on Thursday and Shamsi said there was confusion at first but they had ultimately enjoyed the experience and he sees future prospects for the format.

“With all the different rules we didn’t know what to expect and it was confusing at first. But it’s exciting and none of the players had anything negative to say about it. I just see it basically as you bat and bowl twice, six overs an innings. It brings a different way of seeing things tactically, like with the team with the worst score after the first innings batting last second time round, so they are still in the game.

“The format gets us thinking in other ways which can only be good. When T20 started, people were thinking it was a joke, just go out there and hit the ball, but now we see there is so much strategy in T20 cricket. Having not played for four months, you can’t expect the players to be at the levels they would normally be at, but hopefully this format does see more matches because it is fun,” Shamsi told Saturday Citizen on Friday.

Even though spinners have subsequently become key weapons in T20 cricket, Shamsi said 3TCricket is going to be tough for all bowlers but especially his slow-bowling ilk.

“It’s going to be very difficult for bowlers, especially spinners, and especially at SuperSport Park where it has traditionally been very hard to defend. There are only six fielders so of course you are going to go for runs. In our practice match teams were scoring 80-90 runs per six overs, so as a spinner if you’re going for 15-runs-an over I think you’re doing okay.

“I think the best strategy is to try and take wickets because batsmen can only bat once between the two games, so they also have to be a bit careful. The best way is still to strike because you probably won’t be able to defend anyway because there are so many gaps in the field. And bowling only three overs makes it hard too because as a spinner you only get in your groove after an over or two,” Shamsi said.

Squads

Kites: Quinton de Kock (captain), Temba Bavuma, Jon-Jon Smuts, David Miller, Dwaine Pretorius, Anrich Nortje, Beuran Hendricks, Lutho Sipamla. Coach – Wandile Gwavu.

Kingfishers: Reeza Hendricks, Janneman Malan, Faf du Plessis, Heinrich Klaasen (captain), Gerald Coetzee, Thando Ntini, Glenton Stuurman, Tabraiz Shamsi. Coach – Mignon du Preez.

Eagles: Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, AB de Villiers (captain), Kyle Verreynne, Andile Phehlukwayo, Bjorn Fortuin, Junior Dala, Lungi Ngidi. Coach – Geoffrey Toyana.

A census of the last four International teams to participate in the Presidents Cup shows that anything from six to nine different countries, from three to five continents, have been represented in each edition of the biennial golf match against the United States. Which poses a considerable challenge in terms of creating a team unity between such disparate cultures and languages as Australian, Chinese and Chilean.

Which is why newly-appointed International captain Trevor Immelman has said he is going to lean heavily on the culture created by his predecessor, fellow South African Ernie Els, in the 2021 event at Quail Hollow in North Carolina. Els, faced with the most diverse team in Presidents Cup history, with nine countries represented from five continents, spearheaded the toughest challenge the United States have experienced in the event for many years, the Americans eventually having to come from behind on the last day to win 16-14.

“Though we were unable to deliver Ernie a win at Royal Melbourne last year, the legacy that he established in his time as captain is something I hope to build on moving forward. I can’t wait to continue adding to the platform he created for us. Ernie knew that he needed to find a way to create a family dynamic among our team, and we felt that over the years that might have been what was missing.

“It’s a pretty big hurdle to try and overcome when you have players coming from nine different countries, with their own cultures and languages, in just one week. Ernie really went out of his way to build unity amongst the group and that worked in our favour. That was something he wanted to create for further down the road too. He really felt like our team needed some kind of identity. With the creation of a new International Team logo, that identity was born.

“What he did for us is going to be a turning point for the International team. We have the blueprint that will hopefully lead us to victory, we had amazing chemistry in our team room down in Australia. And it translated on to the golf course, where our guys really did compete as one unit, and we came so close to pulling it off,” Immelman, who was an assistant captain in Melbourne, said in his PGA Tour player diary this week.

Immelman made his name globally by winning the 2008 Masters, beating Tiger Woods by three strokes, but wrist, elbow and back injuries then put his playing career into intermission. He made a comeback on the European Tour and re-entered the top 500 in the world rankings in 2018, but it is his work as a TV analyst that has mostly preserved his high profile. It will also help him in sifting through the talent at his disposal as captain.

“They are literally and figuratively massive shoes for me to fill, but I think we have a nice plan going forward. I’m going to draw on all sorts of different things that I’ve picked up over the years from a leadership standpoint from successful people all over the globe and all walks of life. But we’re going to be having a great time, we’re going to have great communication and there’s going to be a lot of attention to detail.

“In the last two years we’ve had a number of youngsters step up as some of the best golfers in the world. We have a lot of different players starting to play really well, guys who were on the fringes of the team last time around. We had a group of 12 in Melbourne and now I can cast a bigger net and create a group of 30 to 40 golfers, and start to get the camaraderie going,” Immelman said.

One of the more pleasing aspects of the Proteas’ previous season was how well head coach Mark Boucher and his assistant Enoch Nkwe dovetailed together, which is probably not too surprising given the similarities between them in coaching philosophy.

It could have been a lot more awkward than it was when Boucher took over as head coach in December, Nkwe effectively being demoted to assistant coach because he had been the interim team director when the Proteas toured India in September/October.

But Nkwe is the sort of coach who always puts the team first and Boucher has always been known to be a great team man. As a player and coach, the record-breaking wicketkeeper’s attributes of honest communication, competitiveness, toughness, courage and discipline are well-known.

They are shared qualities that bind them together.

That the 37-year-old Nkwe has a similar coaching philosophy to the 43-year-old Boucher became clear when I was fortunate enough to sit in on the virtual coaches conference he held with the Lions recently. Apart from the many coaches within the Lions system, including his successor as franchise head coach Wandile Gwavu, there were coaches from as far afield as the Eastern Cape, Uganda and New Zealand logged in to hear Nkwe share his thoughts, and the Soweto-born former all-rounder certainly left them with many great insights to ponder.

Nkwe sees the coach’s role as being to create an environment that enables the team to reach success.

“It’s important that you are all speaking the same language, you need the environment to be freed up and authentic. There needs to be clear role-definition which is one of the most powerful coaching tools and it can determine the brand of cricket played. And if the whole process is done properly then the coach is in a much stronger position to have tough conversations.

“You’ve got to be totally honest, one can feel sorry for the player but you can’t sugarcoat things or beat around the bush. It may be uncomfortable at the moment, but going forward the player will have respect for you because of your honesty. Don’t be scared or shy to have those honest conversations; the players know the moment you are bullshitting,” Nkwe said.

In order to discover his own coaching philosophy, Nkwe, who began his coaching career as player-coach for Dutch club HCC Rood en Wit in 2005, said he looked at his own character and what he consistently did as both a player and coach.

He came up with the word ‘competitive’, a word closely associated with Boucher himself.

“You need to master the little things, you’re not going to get everything right but you strive for a level of excellence. And you have to find a way to make it work. Things are not ever going to go all smoothly, and when things are not great, that’s when you have to overcome the challenge. You have to keep finding ways to be successful. There’s always a way and you can’t feel sorry for yourself,” Nkwe said.

You can imagine the exact same words coming out of Mark Boucher’s mouth. To be courageous also seemed to be second-nature for the gritty Eastern Cape product.

“You need courage and consistency to promote your vision and the confidence to go into a new environment and not compromise your beliefs because then you will lose the team. If you want to be liked, then coaching is not the industry for you,” Nkwe said frankly.

Boucher himself has spoken positively of their burgeoning relationship.

“Enoch and I have had some great conversations and I think we understand each other. We certainly have the same ideas and agree on how to do it. We know we’ll have hard calls to make but we’re not scared to make them.

“He has a good relationship with the youngsters I don’t know properly yet and he takes a load off my hands. I appreciate it and we will just keep working hard together and drive our vision together,” Boucher said recently.

Nkwe has also been a great respecter of new Director of Cricket Graeme Smith, ever since their paths crossed as schoolkids. Nkwe played for St Stithians and Smith was at King Edward VII. The future national captain would skipper Nkwe in the Gauteng Schools side of 1999, Smith’s second year of Khaya Majola Week cricket and the first of three years in which Nkwe played. Interestingly, both Smith and Nkwe scored centuries on their first-class debuts.

“Graeme was always a great example to me, he worked out at 15 years old that he needed to make peace with his technique. He knew he was not the best-looking batsman but he had a clear vision of what his strengths were and he made sure he thrived on that and his mental strength. I remember at Khaya Majola Week in 1999 just trying to understand how he could score so many hundreds at such a young age.

“Graeme found a way to make it work, he didn’t fight his technique. It was pure mental strength and he was lucky to have a coach that encouraged that,” Nkwe said.

I would dare to predict that South African cricket will realise in future just how lucky they were to have Smith, Boucher and Nkwe working together to steer the Proteas out of their current turmoil.

Graeme Smith

It’s very difficult to decide between AB and Virat. AB probably has more shots. He started out a bit like Jacques Kallis early on, being very technically correct, but now he hangs back in his crease waiting for the bowlers to come to him. He’s the sort of guy who can get a hundred in 50 balls.

Virat is also always looking to take the bowlers on, mentally he loves a contest – you can see that in how many times he has got India over the line, he has an outstanding fourth-innings record. He seems able to plan exactly how he wants to take a bowler on and he can kill you clinically. They are both outstanding batsmen.

Sunil Gavaskar

AB just seems to have a bit more time and he is so composed, so for me he is just that little bit better.

Virat can get out to what a bowler has done, whereas you see in this series that AB has only got out because of something the pitch did. But there is enormous pressure on Virat and he is a brilliant player with great intensity and understanding of the game. He’s at another level to the rest of his team and makes batting look very simple. He is a great talent.

https://citizen.co.za/sport/south-africa-sport/sa-cricket-sport/1790774/who-is-better-ab-de-villiers-or-virat-kohli/