Ken Borland

Dean Elgar was philosophical about the telling blow his team has suffered with the withdrawal of fast bowler Anrich Nortje from the series against India, but the Proteas captain was more upset when he told South Africa’s administrators that they have not backed the squad, and especially the coaches and management, enough.

As has become the norm, the Proteas go into a vital series with off-field clouds hanging over their heads. The most threatening of those is the news this week that coach Mark Boucher and director of cricket Graeme Smith are to be subjected to a formal enquiry by the CSA board based on the “tentative” and “untested” findings of the Social Justice and Nation-Building Report.

On the field, they will be without one of their key enforcers, Nortje needing to see specialists to sort out a persistent hip injury. The 28-year-old has been South Africa’s leading wicket-taker in Tests this year with 25 in five matches at an average of just 20.76.

“It’s not too tough for us, as a team we’ve got used to bad news being around us the last one-and-a-half years,” Elgar said on Tuesday. “We just adapt to it, even though they are not ideal headlines.

“What happens off the field is irrelevant now, we have to try and implement a game-plan and trust it. We’ve been through such crappy times, but we’ve formulated such a bond that works for us as player group.

“There have been so many different administrators, but I feel that we have not received enough backing, especially in terms of our coaches and management. We need to show them some love.

“As players, we would like to say that we back them, we know the work they put in that is not seen by the public. It’s not nice to see them being lambasted by articles in the media,” Elgar said.

Another Proteas squad member who is encountering some mixed media treatment is returning fast bowler Duanne Olivier, and Elgar did his best to bolster the former Kolpak’s image. Nortje’s injury means the 29-year-old is now surely almost certain to play his first Test since February 2019.

“The team has responded very well to Duanne coming back, he’s played with quite a few of the guys before and he has half-a-dozen Central Gauteng Lions team-mates here as well,” Elgar said.

“I want us to have the best opportunity of winning matches and series and I’m sure there’s 100% backing for that in the changeroom. Which means sometimes you have to make tough calls.

“But I’m very pleased and excited to have him back, I know what he can do on the field and there are no bad feelings. I see a different energy and enthusiasm in him.

“He’s a different cricketer now and he brings a lot of knowledge and experience back into the team, which is what we need. He’s a matchwinner, I’m very aware of that and that’s what I want to have,” Elgar said.

Former Proteas captain AB de Villiers has already taken public umbrage at the findings of the Social Justice and Nation-Building Report and other players and officials who have been named will also be expressing their unhappiness in letters to the Cricket South Africa board.

SJN ombudsman Dumisa Ntsebeza accused De Villiers of unfair discrimination based on racial grounds due to his leading role in the non-selection of Khaya Zondo for the decisive last ODI of their tour to India in 2015.

De Villiers, who stated in his affidavit to the SJN that he had earlier been told by the selectors that Zondo was in the squad as a learning experience and not to be part of the playing XI, responded on social media with a message saying his opposition to the then-uncapped Zondo’s selection was purely based on cricketing reasons.

“Throughout my career, I expressed honest cricketing opinions only ever based on what I believed was best for the team, never based on anyone’s race. That’s the fact,” De Villiers said.

The CSA board will consider what action to take based on the report in the new year.

The fact that Ntsebeza himself admitted that the SJN “cannot make definite findings”, “there was no process in place for testing the submissions” and that his recommendations and findings are “merely tentative”, will give the board some leeway, especially since so many of the implicated are lawyering up.

Others, however, have expressed their lack of confidence in the ability of the entire process to treat them fairly.

“I am afraid there isn’t much to say that will benefit me at all. I was found guilty before any response by a kangaroo court,” one former player told The Citizen on condition of anonymity.

“I am trying to take the higher ground without it being a tit-for-tat argument, but I am spending too much on lawyer’s fees already.

“But it doesn’t suit the narrative, I am not holding my breath, we’ve been hung out to dry, so I am not expecting that to change,” he said.

De Villiers has, of course retired from all cricket and so is out of CSA’s jurisdiction, but the originators of the SJN hearings have wanted the prize heads of Proteas coach Mark Boucher and director of cricket Graeme Smith for a long time.

Ntsebeza has delivered what they wanted, but critics of the SJN report say his report is fatally flawed on legal grounds and CSA will undoubtedly have to tread carefully unless they are to find themselves embroiled in more courtroom battles.

CSA’s director of cricket Graeme Smith is always just a call away from BCCI supremo Sourav Ganguly and the former Proteas captain assured on Wednesday that reports from India that their tour of South Africa would be reduced in duration had no basis.

The Times of India, quoting unnamed sources, reported on Wednesday that the BCCI has been “left with no choice” but to reschedule the series, with the number of Test matches reduced from three to two, ostensibly allowing the Indian team to fly out to South Africa later than their scheduled departure date of December 9.

The report implied that it was the players who were pushing for a shorter tour. India are also scheduled to play three one-day internationals and four T20s.

Smith’s response to questions over whether there is any truth in the Indian reports was a terse “Nothing like this has been discussed.”

Smith has been a long-time supporter of BCCI president Ganguly and the mutual respect between the two former national captains is obvious. They are in regular cellphone contact.

The uncertainty is still causing immense frustration, however, because South African cricket has been down this road before with both England and Australia contriving to almost ruin last summer by their rancouring decision to pull out of tours.

The selection of the Proteas squad for the first Test, starting on December 17, has been delayed. Not just because of the emergence of the Omicron variant of Covid but also because of some injury problems.

Lungi Ngidi’s positive Covid test – and the fact he has only bowled seven competitive overs since July – and Lizaad Williams’ side strain are in the public domain, but there are also apparently a couple of other injuries that nobody seems willing to talk about.

On the plus side, the selectors have confirmed that they have been in contact with rampant Central Gauteng Lions fast bowler Duanne Olivier and he is available for the Proteas again. The former Kolpak player has roared to the top of the wicket-takers’ list in four-day provincial cricket, with 28 scalps in four matches at an average of just 11.14.

He has been ferocious and the thought of a raging Olivier hurling down the ball at India’s batsmen at Centurion and the Wanderers, along with fellow fast bowlers Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje, is a tantalising one.

When a South African leader talks about finding an extra 5% it’s normally the Minister of Finance trying to balance the books in a time of constrained fiscus, but Proteas captain Temba Bavuma admitted on Friday that this is what his team will need to do to beat England in Sharjah and maintain their hopes of qualifying for the T20 World Cup semi-finals.

Depending on Australia’s margin of victory or defeat against the West Indies in Saturday’s earlier game in Abu Dhabi, South Africa could advance to the semi-finals even if they lose narrowly to England or could still be knocked out even if they beat the favourites.

Bavuma said the Proteas’ focus was simply on winning, and to do that they needed to be at their best on Saturday.

“We need to play our best cricket tomorrow and our first port of call is the win. Although our cricket has been good so far, we need to find a way to add an extra 5% in all departments,” Bavuma said.

“England have had the better of us lately, so we have to be at our best against them. We can’t leave it to individuals, we can’t rely on individual brilliance, it’s all about us as a team.

“We want to show the same character we have done and fight to the end. Every game we have tailored our strategy according to the opposition and England are obviously a very good team.

“So we will come up with plans that speak to England’s strengths and weaknesses, but mentally our approach should not be any different. The players and management have been through a lot and we have grown as a team,” Bavuma said.

Bavuma may be a playful character out of the spotlight, but he is clearly taking the responsibility of leading the national team at a World Cup most seriously. He is also extremely diligent about fulfilling his batting role, over which there has been much chatter recently. His strike-rate of 108.33 has been a particular focus, as was his run-a-ball innings of 46 against Sri Lanka the last time they played in Sharjah.

“If you look at conditions, they have not been freeflowing and you can’t just come in and hit the first ball out of the middle of the bat. We’ve really had to graft as a batting unit.

“I feel I can do a role up front or in the middle to hold the game and allow the big-hitters to get into the game. We’ve seen that’s worked in this World Cup, we feel it’s what’s best and we back it.

“We really do know now after the Sri Lanka game that the pitch in Sharjah will be on the low side. In terms of our batting, we took the game quite deep and what we have learnt is that we should have pulled the trigger a bit earlier,” Bavuma said.