Ken Borland

As cricket lovers we often talk about the old days and how our heroes of yesteryear would have fared in modern-day cricket, especially the new white-ball formats which have changed the face of the game.

The more nerdy of us love compiling teams that would never take the field but oh, how we wish they could have. One of the sides that is often discussed is the best T20 XI made up of players who never had the opportunity to play the shortest format of the game. In other words, all cricketers before 2003.

One of my selections would be Chris Wilkins, the former Natal, Eastern Province, Border and Derbyshire batsman who sadly passed away at the start of the week, to open the batting. Members of the younger generation need not feel like total dorks if they have never heard of the man, because he never played for South Africa. But he did command immense respect from his peers and many of them I have spoken to agree that one of the 1966 SA Cricket Annual Cricketers of the Year would make their XI for players who never had the opportunity to play T20.

Opening the batting in limited-overs cricket these days is all about being able to hit boundaries against the new ball by playing orthodox cricket strokes, and Wilkins was a master of that. There is many a former provincial fast bowler who is still bearing the scars of being belted over the covers or straight back over his head to the boundary in the first over of the innings, whether in first-class cricket or limited-overs, by Wilkins.

An average in the mid-30s is not exceptional by today’s standards, but a word of warning to those wanting to cast aspersions on the quality of cricket back then. Because it was three-day cricket, most of the pitches were pretty green and result-friendly, and it was probably the greatest era of South African fast bowling in terms of depth – the likes of Vince van der Bijl, Mike Procter, Garth le Roux, Clive Rice, Eddie Barlow, Rupert Hanley, Kenny Watson and Stephen Jefferies et al were all at the peak of their powers. Back then, only a handful of batsmen would ever average more than 40.

Wilkins was held in high enough esteem to be chosen for the Rest of the World XI that toured England in 1970, making an impact with a swashbuckling 73-minute century, the fastest of the season, against the T.N. Pearce XI at Scarborough.

As well as Wilkins, is not the thought of Graeme Pollock, Barry Richards, Procter and Adrian Kuiper playing T20 cricket a mouthwatering one? Lance Klusener is not eligible for this fantasy XI because he played 53 domestic T20 games, but there would not be a more sought after player in any of the world leagues if ‘Zulu’ were in his prime now.

All those wonderful fast bowlers would have been great to see in T20 as well, but, in these days of spinners being a strike bowler in white-ball cricket, there is not too much by way of South African slow bowlers to choose from. Leg-spinner Denys Hobson would probably have been the Imran Tahir of his day, although the Western Province star would probably have been a better Test bowler.

There are many international bowlers from the 1970s and 80s who are extremely thankful that there was not a T20 format back then during the heyday of the West Indies … bowling to Viv Richards would certainly not have been for the fainthearted.

There is a T20 tournament on the go at the moment in Abu Dhabi, with South Africa’s champions, the Titans, taking part. It seems to be very much a made-for-TV event, judging by a great paucity of spectators in a grandiose stadium. A triumph for the Titans would be nice, but hardly memorable given the gimmicky feel of the event and tiny boundaries that really make it into a slogging contest.

What is clear, however, is that South Africa has a great deal of top-class talent and it was a bittersweet feeling to see Colin Ingram and Kyle Abbott starring for a team from Afghanistan of all places.

Matshipi ‘Marcia’ Letsoalo’s radiant smile ripped through the blueness of a Highveld winter’s morning as she considered how women’s cricket in South Africa has changed since she made her international debut in 2007.

“When I started playing for South Africa, support was lacking and it wasn’t easy. When I first heard I was about to play for the Proteas, I pictured us being in the limelight like the men’s team. But it was totally different, nobody knew we had a women’s team,” Letsoalo recalls.

“But we’ve made such progress, we now get so much and the publicity and media attention is good too. We’re definitely headed in the right direction.”

The 30-year-old medium-pacer was heading for England in a few hours when she spoke to The Pretoria News at the High Performance Centre at Tuks on Monday, with Momentum, the sponsors who have made such a difference to women’s cricket in South Africa, giving the national team a send-off before their three-match T20 series against the World Cup runners-up and two games versus Ireland.

Momentum have certainly put their money where their mouth is by extending the six central contracts they paid for last year to all 14 members of the national squad, while yesterday the announcement was also made that SuperSport have come on board and will provide live coverage of all three matches against England on September 1, 3 and 7.

“Oh wow, the pressure!” Letsoalo joked. “No, it’s exciting, it’s what we’ve always wanted to happen. It’s my dream come true to be able to call myself a professional cricketer, from 2007 it’s what I’ve dreamt of. I’ve been working hard and finally got the reward, so it’s superb.

“My grandmother and other relatives have never seen me play cricket, so now that it’s on TV, it’s a great opportunity for them to do that,” the South African Air Force employee says.

Born in Phalaborwa, Letsoalo had to come down to Pretoria, enrolling at Tshwane North College for a management diploma, for her to make her cricket dreams come true. Women’s cricket in Limpopo in the early 2000s was very much at a fledgling level, so she spent her formative years playing with schoolboys in informal games.

“When I was 13, I saw a men’s game on TV, I had only seen cricket on TV. So I started played with the boys on the street and my passion grew for the game.

“I started playing for Foskor Cricket Club, but even then it was only with boys. But I never stopped because of my love for the sport,” Letsoalo says.

She finally experienced cricket without the boys when she started playing for the Limpopo U19 provincial team, but she admits she came to Pretoria both for study and cricketing purposes. Joining Atteridgeville Cricket Club, she was soon invited to Northerns trials and she was firmly on the road to the international stage.

Someone with Letsoalo’s sheer passion, determination and infectious enthusiasm is very difficult to keep down, and she soon won over her family, who were sceptical at first about her life choices.

“They weren’t very happy with me playing cricket, they used to say ‘It’s not safe with the boys!’ But they saw there was no stopping me and I just kept going. Eventually they realised that cricket is my passion in life,” she recalls.

A nagging medium-pacer who is more of a seam bowler than a swing merchant, Letsoalo says she is inspired by a pair of South African pace bowling legends – Makhaya Ntini and Shaun Pollock.

Both of them achieved a great deal of success in England and, although South Africa’s women have never beaten them, Letsoalo says the team is looking forward to testing themselves against top-class opposition.

“Conditions should be similar to here and we’re looking forward to the tour as a group. We want competitive cricket, we’re not going to stress too much about the results, but rather focus on implementing what we’ve learnt here at the academy, where we’ve been having a camp. We’re not going to play the names.”

A senior player now with 72 appearances across the three formats for the Proteas, Letsoalo is a bundle of good energy for a team that is definitely moving forward. She didn’t stand still in Phalaborwa, making the life-changing move to Pretoria, and she is eager that the national team do the same.

“I would love to see us in the top two women’s cricket nations in the world. We made the top four in the Women’s World T20 earlier this year, so we are preparing to see if we can make the top two in the 2017 World Cup,” the player who just loves cricket says.