Ken Borland

Proteas coach Mark Boucher on Thursday singled out the services of the recalled Aiden Markram as being potentially vital for their 2023 ODI World Cup campaign, suggesting the 26-year-old is going to be in the starting XI for the series that starts against Pakistan at Centurion on Friday.

Markram has an astonishing record in franchise 50-over cricket, averaging 63.04 with seven centuries in 22 innings; in his last three campaigns his strike-rate has been 109.95. Based on that and his current phenomenal form, his ODI record – averaging just 27.95 with a strike-rate of 85 – seems an anomaly.

Boucher, his coach at the Titans when the franchise won two Momentum One-Day Cup titles, certainly thinks so.

“We understand how good a player Aiden is, he’s that good that we believe now is the time for him to resurrect his ODI career. He had a funny start to his ODI career, being made captain after a couple of games; I don’t know if it was the right call. But he now has a clear direction of the way we want him to bat – like he has in franchise cricket, we want to get him into that same mindset.

“When he’s in form like he is now then he really stands out and we see him as a potential matchwinner in 2023, so we need to get him in the side. In red-ball cricket he can just go out and bat, but being a humble character, sometimes in white-ball cricket if he’s not striking at 140 he feels he’s holding up the team, he feels pressurised. But if he or Quinton de Kock get to a hundred then not many batsmen will outscore them.

“If Aiden’s batting in the 40^th over, he’ll probably have a hundred at close to a run-a-ball and we have seen what he can do at the back end of an innings. We hope he clicks and gets really big runs, we’ve worked on a couple of different shot options for him and we feel he is just one or two knocks away,” Boucher said on Thursday.

Other players who I would like to see involved in the series:

Wiaan Mulder

It’s been a long time since the 23-year-old played the last of his 10 ODIs, against Sri Lanka at Centurion in March 2019, but the Proteas need more consistent output from their all-rounder than Andile Phehlukwayo has been delivering lately. Mulder is an accurate bowler who is developing more variety and is capable of hitting the ball far, as his List A strike-rate of 87.67 shows.

Heinrich Klaasen

Since he was the Player of the Series in the whitewash of Australia a year ago, Klaasen’s international career has stalled largely due to illness and injury. But the Proteas need to start thinking about a viable replacement as a finisher for the great David Miller and Klaasen has shown he can fit the bill. One of the better players of spin in the country, he is also a composed fellow ideally suited to the madness of the death overs.

Sisanda Magala

Deeply admired by his fellow domestic professionals and highly-rated by no less of a legend than Dale Steyn [https://citizen.co.za/sport/south-african-sport/cricket/proteas/2465546/dale-steyns-appreciation-for-sisanda-magala-he-has-fight-in-him/],the time has come to see if Magala can transfer his impressive franchise displays to the international stage. The burly 30-year-old bowls with deceptive pace and his greatest strength comes in the death overs with his potent yorkers. Batting at eight, he would also provide a powerful hitter down the order.

An autumnal sun may be shining over SuperSport Park on Friday and the pitch could be a bit slower than usual, but Proteas coach Mark Boucher is still expecting good conditions and for wicket-taking firepower to be crucial in the middle overs of the first ODI against Pakistan.

The last time South Africa played a home ODI series in April was against Australia in 2009, the Proteas winning the rubber 3-2. While spinners played a big role in the series, the most interesting result came at Centurion when Australia were destroyed by early-morning swing, Dale Steyn and Wayne Parnell sharing eight wickets, to be bowled out for just 131. Friday’s match has a 10am start time.

“It’s certainly cooling down, it’s why I’m wearing my tracksuit top and a couple of the guys have come down with a bit of flu,” Boucher said in his virtual interview on Thursday. “Generally, the colder it gets up here the slower the pitch, but it still looks pretty good. There hasn’t been as much cricket played on it this summer so it probably is a bit fresher than usual. And it’s a day game so I expect good conditions, but just a touch slower to what we’re used to.

“We’ve got the pace though and we need wickets in the middle overs. From overs 11-40 we want to be nice and aggressive, make the play and not just sit back and wait for things to happen. So I hope the quicks run in and be really aggressive. You tend to win games if you take wickets in that period and we’ve got the firepower and the spinner to do that.”

Boucher confirmed that all 22 members of the ODI squad are fit and available, including all-rounder Andile Phehlukwayo, who injured his ankle in the first game of the domestic T20 competition and has not played since February 19.

The last time the Proteas played ODI cricket was when they whitewashed Australia 3-0 a year ago, but not all of those star performers are going to be in the starting XI on Friday.

“A lot of guys were rested from that series and there were a couple of injuries, plus it was a long time ago. So by rights certain players will come back and have got to fill their spots again, but we will also take form into consideration. It’s nice to have a full-strength squad to choose from and the guys who were given an opportunity really performed. But there will be honest conversations about who is first in line.

“Temba Bavuma will probably bat three and we see Aiden Markram as someone we can juggle, but he will probably start up front although he can bat three or four. We’ve selected a squad in line with what we want to do in the 2023 World Cup, but it’s more important to win now and we want give guys opportunities where they have really done well for their franchises,” Boucher said.

When Imraan Khan said on October 1 last year, while they were still waiting for clarity on when the new season would begin, that “the culture and the environment is strong at the moment” in the Dolphins’ camp, there would have been many who just brushed the comments aside as typical pre-season talk from a coach.

But now that the Dolphins have pulled off an incredible triumph in the four-day competition – not just in the final but with their back-to-back away wins to host it – to add to their shared Momentum One-Day Cup title and their place in the T20 final, it is clear that Khan was dead right: something special has been brewing at Kingsmead.

How else did they manage to win the final outright with two days lost to rain, humbling the Titans, the dominant side in franchise history, by skittling them for a record low of 53?

“It’s been a fantastic performance, a bit unexpected, to be honest. But that’s been a feature of the team this season, they continuously fight. After the disappointment of the game being abandoned in Pretoria due to Covid, we fought back to share the One-Day Cup and then after losing the T20 final, we notched back-to-back away victories in the four-dayers, which was a special effort.

“We started two years ago as a technical team and we knew we had the tools, but we needed more consistency. We found a brand of cricket with our experienced bowlers being our spinners, and we stuck by it, everyone bought into it and we had a strong environment. The team does not rely on one or two individuals, it was a collective effort,” Khan told The Citizen on Tuesday.

The adoption of a new provincial-based system in domestic cricket spells the end of the Dolphins franchise just as they were becoming a dominant force, and there has already been one casualty with all-rounder Senuran Muthusamy, one of the stars of the final, throwing in his lot with newly-promoted North-West.

But Khan is confident Kingsmead will remain a fortress for the KZN Coastal side.

“We’ve managed to retain pretty much all our players, although Robbie Frylinck retiring is a big blow to our white-ball side and Senuran is unfortunately leaving us. We wanted to keep him, but we wish him well. But I am confident and comfortable with what we have, although we will still have to work hard on our execution and focus.

“We tend to back our spinners because conditions at Kingsmead have slowed down and we have a very young pace attack but it has a lot of potential. We’ve also had to do a lot of work on our batting so we can play our own conditions well. We have batted well because we spend a lot of time on the very specific skills needed here,” Khan said.

Playing all of their fixtures against the European sides on foreign shores is going to prejudice the hopes of the four South African teams in the Rainbow Cup, but Sharks coach Sean Everitt believes his team should still be competitive given their history of travelling well during SuperRugby.

The Rainbow Cup starts on April 24, with the South African franchises playing local derbies on the first three weekends. They then cross over to the Northern Hemisphere to play the existing Pro14 sides. While the fixtures for Rounds 4-6 have not yet been confirmed due to uncertainty over travel plans, those matches will all definitely be in Europe.

“We only have three domestic games and two of ours are not at Kings Park, but those are the cards we have been dealt and we just have to get on with it. But the Sharks have always travelled well and I expect the same. We will be there for two weeks before our first game so we can get used to conditions and I don’t think conditions will be as severe at the end of May as some people are expecting.

“We are looking forward to the challenge of playing against new teams and creating new memories and great experiences. But I think SuperRugby will be missed because it suited our style of play, we want to attack, it’s in our DNA, and it was a great competition. Our squad will stay the same as now, we’re only allowed to sign 45 players and I think we have to take 42 of them over there,” Everitt said at the weekend.

While the beloved free-flowing play of SuperRugby will be missed, Bulls coach Jake White said some of the less appealing features of the southern hemisphere competition once it expanded – such as the lopsided nature of the draw – will be repeated in the Rainbow Cup.

“We know our first three games are in South Africa so that’s our focus. But it’s not ideal to be playing all the European teams away, especially if conditions get helluva tough. But it’s going to be the same for all the South African sides. The Rainbow Cup is a very unique competition in that you have six games to get into the final and four of ours are away from home.

“But we’re lucky because some teams [the Sharks] have five away games. It’s a great opportunity to prepare for when we actually do play Pro16, but it’s a bit like SuperRugby if you didn’t have the favourable draw. Like if you had to play the Crusaders, Chiefs and Hurricanes away, you had a very much more difficult draw than the teams that played them in South Africa,” White said.