Ken Borland

The domestic cricket season will come to an end next week with the Dolphins hosting the Titans in the 4-Day Domestic Series final at Kingsmead following the KwaZulu-Natal side’s seven-wicket win over the Warriors at St George’s Park on Friday.

The Warriors themselves had an outside chance of topping Pool B and qualifying for the final, but their defeat and the comfortable draw secured by the Titans against the Imperial Lions at the Wanderers on Friday means the Pretoria team go through to the showpiece game, which will be played over five days.

The Dolphins were chasing just 112 to beat the Warriors and, although Aya Gqamane picked up a couple of cheap wickets, opener Senuran Muthusamy dug in with 57 not out to see them home.

The Dolphins are certainly the form team at the moment, having overtaken the highflying Knights in spectacular fashion over the last two rounds.

The Knights’ form away from home is a concern though, with the Cape Cobras beating them by a record innings and 215 runs at Newlands on Friday to blast them out of top spot in Pool A.

The visitors, trailing by 342 runs on first innings after Pieter Malan’s 264 and a century by Kyle Verreynne, began the final day with little hope on 106 for seven.

Left-arm spinner George Linde, who is rapidly becoming one of the most dangerous all-round cricketers in the land, took the last three wickets to fall to finish with exceptional figures of seven for 29 in 21.2 overs, the Knights being bundled out for just 127. Farhaan Behardien scored a gutsy 48 not out.

Thanks to Wiaan Mulder’s accomplished 56 not out, the Imperial Lions were able to set the Titans a target of 313 in 89 overs, a required run-rate of 3.51. Openers Dean Elgar (68) and Aiden Markram (64) gave them a great start as they added 125 in 36.5 overs.

But left-arm seamer Beuran Hendricks produced a superb delivery to have Markram caught behind, and Elgar then holed out against spinner Bjorn Fortuin shortly before the tea break. With the Titans ending the session on 149 for two after 48 overs, and the clouds starting to build up, both teams agreed there was little point in going into a third session and hands were shaken on the draw.

Titans paceman Lizaad Williams celebrated his selection for the Proteas squad for the first time with another fine performance, taking four for 74 in 18 overs.

Quinton de Kock’s five weeks away from cricket – during which time he was relieved of the national captaincy – will come to an end at the Wanderers on Tuesday and both the Proteas and the Titans will be hoping he burns as brightly as magnesium oxide in the final round of Four-Day Franchise Series matches against the Imperial Lions.

De Kock looked in desperate need of a break when he was dismissed for  duck in the second innings of the second Test in Pakistan on February 8, and he no doubt enjoyed all the fresh air and the miles of beaches near his George home when he returned to South Africa.

But it has not been all easy living for the 28-year-old since his last match, with Titans coach Mandla Mashimbyi revealing on Monday that De Kock has been working hard in the nets as he prepares to return to action as the Titans look to nail down their place in the four-day final. The Proteas coaching staff will also be watching because Pakistan will be back here in April for ODI and T20 series.

“Quinny has been lively and he looks happy to be back. He’s been working hard in the nets and has been hitting balls for days. He looks very hungry to do something for the team,” Mashimbyi told The Citizen.

The presence of De Kock, as well as another international wicketkeeper/batsman in Heinrich Klaasen, significantly boosts the Titans batting line-up and there will be white-hot action in store as Kagiso Rabada spearheads the Lions attack.

Rabada’s Proteas new-ball partner Lungi Ngidi is not quite over the knee niggle he picked up in the closing stages of the T20 competition in Durban, so the Titans attack should be much the same to the one that played against the Knights last week.

The Wanderers pitch was the subject of much debate last week as Dolphins left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj recorded the second-best figures ever at the famous ground, his 13 for 174 being second only to Rabada’s 14 for 105 against the KZN side in 2014/15, but Wandile Gwavu, the Lions coach, said the wicket was a good one and he expects the same sort of surface for this game.

“It offered a little bit of turn and Keshav was always going to find it, he once again showed why he is the country’s No.1 spinner, although we should have played him better. But it also offered a lot for the seamers and was good for batting once you got in, and there was a bit of rough on the fourth day.

“This pitch looks very similar, so it should be an evenly-balanced game, although there is a crack or two that could open up in the heat, even though there is a lot of grass covering,” Gwavu said.

While the Titans, who are 14.16 points ahead of the Warriors, are the favourites to win Pool B, the other pool is coming down to the most thrilling of conclusions with the Knights, who visit the Cape Cobras, just 1.16 points ahead of the Dolphins, who travel to play the Warriors.

The two pool winners will contest the final from March 25.

Two not entirely unconnected happenings in the world of cricket caught my eye this week: The first was an article (http://www.espncricinfo.com/magazine/content/story/1098043.html) on CricInfo about the looming player strike in Australia and how the relationship between their administration and their players has almost entirely broken down; the second was that Cricket Australia’s executive manager of broadcast, digital and commercial, Ben Amarfio, had come to South Africa and briefed local cricket stakeholders on their successes, in particular the Big Bash League.

The irony of the situation is that although the Big Bash League has been an enormous success in terms of crowds and television revenue, the damage it is doing to all other aspects of Australian cricket reminds one of the south Indian proverb that “nothing grows under the shade of the Banyan tree”.

The T20 competition might be going through the roof, but the rest of Australian cricket is not exactly excelling: results have been indifferent and the players are about to go on strike! The temptation to copy what they are doing should be resisted.

The dollar signs are already rolling in the eyes of Cricket South Africa when it comes to the new Global Destination T20 League that will debut on our shores next summer, but the actual economics of the event have been poorly communicated to many of the stakeholders who will hand over control of their stadia and players for the duration of the competition.

The state of the game in this country is currently strong, and CEO Haroon Lorgat was a well-deserved winner of the Leadership in Sport Business award at this week’s Sports Industry Awards, but the danger still exists that the lower levels of the sport, the foundation, will be ignored in favour of the riches that could suddenly become available.

We all know the immense damage done to the reputation of Cricket South Africa following the hosting of the IPL in 2009 and the money-grabbing associated with it, but our administrators seem to have short memories; how else can one explain the presence of disgraced former CEO Gerald Majola as an honoured guest, seated in the front row, at their own awards ceremony last week?

At the same awards dinner, it was noticeable that the prize for the best scorers association, previously included in the professional operations section along with the umpires, had been demoted to the amateur awards given out at the breakfast earlier on the same day. It may seem like a trivial matter – but it was certainly a slight felt by the scorers, who are an integral part of the game, just like umpires. It points to a lingering suspicion that CSA might just be undervaluing their foundations, the domestic base.

It is a fact that the best organisations look after the interests of all their people – their employees and stakeholders – and a prime example of this is the Northerns Cricket Union, who also held their awards luncheon this week.

Their Titans team is the best in the country, winning two trophies last season and narrowly missing out on the third, and that is partly because of the superb administrative structures that support the on-field performance. The Northerns team is also the dominant force in senior provincial competitions.

The administration is happy and productive because every person is treated well and with enormous respect; they are made to feel part of the success of the union and franchise. There is no greater measure of this than the fact that all the grounds staff, dressed in their Sunday best, were invited to the luncheon and the hug and kiss CEO Jacques Faul received from one of the housekeeping staff when she received her certificate.

Faul is an outstanding CEO who makes every one of his staff feel valued, and that is the secret to getting the best out of people, and the strong relationship between him and president John Wright, a true servant of sport, is also vital.

Cricket South Africa need to be warned that there is a danger of prioritising money over people and the overall well-being of the game of which they are trustees; when things are going well is probably the right time for this reminder.

*Altaaf Kazi, CSA’s head of media and communications, has pointed out, however, in response to this column that the scorers were never previously honoured during the live TV broadcast segment of the awards, whereas this year their award presentation from the breakfast was shown live on SuperSport. The reshuffling was due to the pleasing inclusion of three extra awards for women’s cricket.