Ken Borland

At just 26 years of age, Thriston Lawrence is not yet an expert at finishing off wins, but his temperament and skill were still enough to carry him to an exciting one-stroke victory in the South African Open at Blair Atholl Golf and Equestrian Estate on Sunday.

Lawrence was leading by five shots with seven holes to play, but he let Frenchman Clement Sordet back into the contest with a horror run that saw him drop five shots between the 12^th and 16^th holes, including a double-bogey on the par-four 15^th, when he hit his second into the river.

Sordet had now drawn level, having birdied the par-four 14^th after a great approach shot to 12 feet. But the Challenge Tour graduate then blinked as he missed a six-foot putt for par on the penultimate hole, and then his drive on the par-five 18^th went into the fairway bunker, meaning he had to lay up and couldn’t really put pressure on Lawrence.

The South African, who collected four birdies between the fourth and 10^th holes, could afford to miss a three-foot birdie putt and still win by one.

“In a one-on-one like that, you need to make pars and not make mistakes, even when I was five ahead,” Lawrence said after his third DP World Tour win, all of them coming this year.

“Inside I’m not always calm, but it comes with experience, having been in that situation, and once you have won, it all adds up in terms of experience. It’s a big mental thing and I try to think of the present.

“So it was nice to see I managed to stay in the moment, even though I was nervous. I had been five ahead and I didn’t want to disappoint friends, family and sponsors. There was quite a lot of emotion walking up 18, it was a weird but good feeling.

“It’s never easy to win, it’s the toughest thing, but you teach yourself with experience. It felt easy in the middle of the round, but then golf happened and it was not the prettiest finish. But I just tried to stick to my game,” Lawrence said.

Starting the final round two strokes ahead of Sordet, Lawrence did not have the start he would have wanted as he bogeyed the first hole and Sordet pulled level with a birdie.

But an even bigger swing happened on the par-four fourth as Lawrence curled a superb approach shot to eight feet from the pin and made the birdie, while the 30-year-old Sordet found the fairway bunker and then hit his second out of bounds, leading to a double-bogey.

Suddenly Lawrence was three ahead and he extended that lead to five with another birdie on the fifth and back-to-back gains on nine and 10.

Pretoria Country Club’s Christian Maas claimed the Freddie Tait Cup for leading amateur as he finished on five-under-par. All five members of the GolfRSA squad who received invitations to the tournament made the cut, the first time this has happened in at least 30 years and exactly what the backers of the amateur programme would have wanted.

South Africa’s top-order were dying slow deaths as they went in pursuit of a mediocre target of 134, before Aiden Markram and David Miller switched gears in the second half of the innings to carry the Proteas to a thrilling five-wicket victory with two balls to spare in their T20 World Cup match against India at the Perth Stadium on Sunday.

After a superb bowling display led by Lungi Ngidi and Wayne Parnell had restricted India to just 133/9, South Africa’s top-order was blown away by brilliant swing bowling up front. Whereas the Proteas had used pace and bounce to unsettle the batsmen, India showed tremendous skill up front with the new ball.

Outstanding young left-arm paceman Arshdeep Singh swung the ball away from Quinton de Kock (1), to have him well-caught by Lokesh Rahul at second slip, and two balls later he swung the ball into another left-hander, Rilee Rossouw, to trap him lbw for a duck.

Temba Bavuma’s lack of form meant he was unable to get a bat on many of the magnificent deliveries bowled to him by Arshdeep and Bhuvneshwar Kumar, and then attempted an ambitious scoop shot against Mohammed Shami and was neatly caught behind by Dinesh Karthik for 10.

South Africa were teetering on 24/3 and Markram and Miller almost looked like condemned men as they tried to weather the storm. They did well to stay in, but after 10 overs the score was just 40/3, meaning another 94 needed to be scored off the last 60 balls.

Markram decided to go for broke and, in a brave innings of 52 off 41 balls, he swung hard and shifted the momentum of the game, beating back the Indian bowlers. He should have been caught twice and Rohit Sharma also missed an easy run out chance, as he and Miller added 76 for the fourth wicket in 10 overs.

Miller was then left with the last 34 runs to score off 26 balls, and he once again showed his sheer class and skill at the death, steering the Proteas home with 59 not out off 46 balls.

India had chosen to bat first, and on a pitch offering steep bounce and plenty of pace, Ngidi set the cats amongst the pigeons as he reduced them to 49/5 in eight-and-a-half overs. The tall paceman used the bounce superbly, taking 4/29 in his four overs, and all four wickets came off shortish deliveries. But his line, just outside off stump with the occasional straighter delivery, was also outstanding.

Ngidi struck with just his second ball as Rohit (15) spliced a pull shot and the bowler took a return catch; Ngidi then ended his first over with the wicket of the other opener, Rahul (9) trying to steer the ball to third man but being caught at slip as the delivery got too big for him. Markram was practically standing on the fielding circle when he took the catch.

Virat Kohli counterpunched in scoring 12, but Ngidi then dismissed him, top-edging a hook to fine leg, where Kagiso Rabada took a good catch running around the boundary.

Rabada then took an absolute screamer, sprinting in from the fine leg boundary and diving forward to catch Hardik Pandya (2) off Ngidi.

With Anrich Nortje blasting out Deepak Hooda for a duck, India were crashing, but Suryakumar Yadav pulled the blue aeroplane out of its dive with a great innings, his 68 off 40 balls piloting them to a total that kept them in the match because of the strength of their own pace attack.

Left-arm seamer Parnell had done a fine job for the Proteas up front with the new ball, and he soared in the closing stages, taking 3/15 in his four overs, which included a maiden in the first over of the match.

Nortje (4-0-23-1) and Rabada (4-0-26-0) maintained the relentless pace pressure.

The Central Gauteng Lions endured a tough 2021/22 season with Proteas and SA A call-ups decimating their line-up, and one could only feel sympathy for Malusi Siboto, their stalwart seam bowler who had to carry the attack when so many bowlers were missing.

Across the four-day competition, the triumphant 50-over One-Day Cup campaign and the two T20 tournaments, the Lions played 24 matches last season and Siboto played in every one of them. He bowled the most overs in the four-day tournament, 151.4, and took 24 wickets at an average of just 14, spearheading a challenge for the title that only faltered in the final round.

The 34-year-old Siboto was also their leading T20 wicket-taker, while conceding runs at just 7.39 per over. So it was a fitting act of appreciation when he was crowned as the CGL Player of the Year at the weekend.

For his part, Siboto admitted that he was “very tired” but he said the responsibility of being a senior player had carried him through.

“For me, the big key was that element of making sure the younger players were ready. As a senior player, you have to step up and make sure the others follow you and that you play as a team.

“The stats are not important for me and I didn’t feel more pressure out on the field. It was more about mindset, being aware of the smaller things, those situations that can be game-changing.

“Whatever happens, you have to trust all the players to execute. So I didn’t feel there was any pressure on me to perform, it was more about making sure all the players are on the same page.

“At times it seems like you’re bowling for someone else. And then you just have to make sure they’re aware, someone like Codi Yusuf had Sisanda Magala and I always in his ear,” Siboto told The Citizen.

Siboto has now played 244 matches across the formats in domestic first division cricket. He moved from the Knights to the Titans in 2016/17 and then to the Lions in 2018/19. He has never failed to be a consistent, skilful performer at that level, certainly one of the most effective bowlers in the local game.

Although his only taste of international cricket came with eight matches for SA A between 2016 and 2019, he is not going to give up on his dream of playing for the Proteas.

“I am ready to play for the Proteas, I’ve been bringing it year-in, year-out and my SA A games were a long time ago. I am fit and working hard and always growing. I’m learning something new every season.

“Next season again, I will just try to be consistent, do the basics right, that’s all I can control.

“At the Titans, there was an element of there being no comfort zone, we were all working hard to win trophies and build a legacy.

“At the Lions, it’s a different ball-game because half the team is so young and new. So it’s a matter of also making sure those younger guys flourish,” Siboto said.

South Africa have not played a completed ODI in four months but captain Temba Bavuma says his team is going to carry the momentum from their Test series win over India into the 50-over matches that start in Paarl on Wednesday.

The Proteas, fielding a second-string side, had a washed out ODI against the Netherlands at the end of November, but before that their last proper action was a 2-1 series loss to Sri Lanka in Colombo at the beginning of September.

But confidence is running high in the Proteas camp after their tremendous Test series triumph over India, in which Bavuma played a key role with his second-innings heroics.

“Momentum is a real thing and in the Wanderers Test we managed to get some,” Bavuma said on Tuesday. “So we will lean on that, although it’s obviously a different format with different skill sets and pressures.

“There’s always going to be pressure, whether we played ODI cricket last month or not. We’re coming up against a very strong outfit and hopefully that inspires us to bring our best cricket.

“We need to make sure we pitch up and do what we need to do. We played a lot of T20 cricket last year and in one-day cricket we accept that there are improvements we need to make.

“This series is the perfect opportunity, against a very strong outfit, to test ourselves and see how our game needs to improve and whether we have the right personnel because the road to the 2023 World Cup has started,” Bavuma said.

In terms of selection, the skipper said the first thing he will look for is bowling options, making it likely that part-time off-spinner Aiden Markram will play. But he will not be opening the batting.

“As captain, I always like as many bowling resources I can get on the bowling front,” Bavuma explained. “You accept that one of your bowlers is not going to hit their straps on the day, and then to have a replacement is a luxury.

“I would like as many bowling options as I can get, considering the balance of the team. But Quinton de Kock and Janneman Malan have done well up front, so I don’t see a change there and I come into the picture at No.3.

“But the middle-order is where the real conversation is – do we play another all-rounder at No.6 or a specialist batsman?

“Considering the Paarl conditions – the bounce is lower and more skiddy – we need pace bowlers who can exploit that with the new ball and it’s quite friendly to the slower bowlers,” Bavuma said.

Kagiso Rabada has been released from the team for the series due to high workloads over a sustained period of time and the need for him to recover before the Test tour to New Zealand in February.