Ken Borland

Northerns Titans CEO Jacques Faul likes to spring a surprise on the opposition and, on face value, the franchise’s decision to sign Beyers Swanepoel for the coming season will be a shock to some, given the controversial fashion in which the all-rounder’s stint down the road at the Central Gauteng Lions ended.

The final match of last season was the One-Day Cup final between the two Gauteng archrivals and a tightly-contested thriller went the Titans’ way, thanks mostly to the heroics of Keegan Petersen and Duan Jansen.

But Swanepoel’s bizarre decision to leave the field of play in the 43^rd over of the Titans chase, having bowled his ration of 10 overs, also played a major part in the visitors to the Wanderers shifting the momentum of the game. Because Swanepoel had not suffered any injury, the Lions were not allowed to substitute him and were left with 10 fielders for the tense finale’, which they lost by three wickets on the penultimate ball of the match.

Swanepoel had chosen to leave early so he could catch a flight to England, where he was due to join Worcestershire for the county season. Astonishingly, he also did not have a No-Objection Certificate (NOC) from his local franchise or Cricket South Africa to play overseas, an incredible oversight by his agents, Tridon Sports Management.

His team-mates were left in a strange state of heartbreak and fury after the game and it did not take long, less than two weeks later, for the Lions to terminate his contract. That did, however, make Swanepoel a free agent and CSA agreed to give him an NOC to play for Worcestershire. The mother body did, however, lay a Level 4 charge of bringing the game into disrepute against him.

That can carry a ban of 10 matches, which would be a sizeable part of next season. The CSA disciplinary hearing has still not been held, however, due to the unavailability of the disciplinary commissioner.

That means there is still a lot of uncertainty over Swanepoel: Not only in terms of his mental state but how much of next season he is going to be missing due to a ban. For Faul and the Titans, however, it is not an outside-the-box signing and the CEO confirmed that he did not even need Board approval to offer the talented 28-year-old a contract.

“Professional sport is cut-throat and we have to sign people who can help us to win. Our information was that four franchises wanted to sign him. He’s 28 years old, so he probably has seven years left as a top cricketer, and he has no track record of this sort of behaviour before,” Faul told kenborland.com.

“I think he just got the date of his flight wrong and to not allow him to play here would be a severe punishment. Everyone’s entitled to one mistake, he has apologised and he has been sanctioned by the Lions.

“He is still a very capable player and it would be wrong to scapegoat a quality cricketer like him. We had to sign him before the CSA disciplinary because the contracting window was closing. But hopefully emotions have died down a bit and he’s not painted into a corner.

“He thought no-one else would want him, but I hope he can redeem himself, I think he will. To be remembered for that one incident would be the saddest thing. And he is the right profile cricketer for us – at this stage he doesn’t play for SA A or the Proteas. And he was schooled here in Titans territory at Garsfontein,” Faul said.

It is believed that the Lions players and coaches did not want to lose a cricketer of Swanepoel’s ability and were willing to forgive him, but the Lions board were adamant that he had to go.

The whole incident will be even more galling for the Wanderers-based team now that Swanepoel has gone across the Hennops River to their great rivals, the same team that snatched the one-day trophy from them after his inexplicable departure. A swing bowler who can be quite phenomenal on his day, both with the red and the white ball, Swanepoel is also a very handy batsman down the order, capable of scoring very quickly.

Our domestic cricket would be the loser without Swanepoel playing and hopefully CSA can sort out his disciplinary hearing soon and therefore finally draw a line under a most unfortunate incident.

KITWE (Zambia) – Overnight leader MJ Viljoen went out in three-under 33 but would follow that with an even better four-under-par 32 coming in, to cruise to a six-stroke victory in the Mopani Zambia Open at Nkana Golf Club on Sunday.

Viljoen’s brilliant final-round 65 lifted him to 16-under-par for the R2.5 million event, well clear of local favourite Dayne Moore, who shot 70 on Sunday to finish on 10-under-par.

The Serengeti Estates golfer has not won since September 2022 and his emotional triumph on Sunday follows a tough time in which he finished 64^th in last season’s Order of Merit delivered by The Courier Guy, the first time he had finished outside the top-30 since 2018/19.

“I needed this win big time and I am very proud of myself for pulling it through. I’ve worked hard for the last few months and it feels really good to get this result. I lost a lot of playing rights last season, so it’s really good to be back in the winner’s circle,” Viljoen said.

The 29-year-old had started the final round with a one-stroke lead over Jacques P. de Villiers and Moore, with the next closest contenders being five strokes back in Heinrich Bruiners, Fredrik From and Kyle Barker.

But neither De Villiers nor Moore were able to keep up with Viljoen as he birdied the fourth, sixth and seventh holes. Viljoen’s only bogey on Sunday came on the par-four 10^th hole, cutting his lead to two strokes, but he rebounded superbly with three successive birdies. The coup de grace was an eagle on the 527m par-five 17^th.

Having secured an albatross on the fourth on the first day, he birdied the 484m par-five in the last two rounds, and he said his shots on that hole will be one of his favourite memories when he thinks back on his third Sunshine Tour title.

“My shots on four, I almost had a hole-in-one today on the seventh, and the eagle on 17 nearly went in for another albatross, those will be my favourite memories. And also the fans. I played with Dayne Moore on Saturday and so many youngsters were following us around, there was just noise all the time and it was awesome,” Viljoen said.

Zambia’s Moore birdied the first hole to draw level with Viljoen on nine-under, but was four behind by the turn, having dropped a shot on the par-four eighth. A birdie on the 10^th saw a two-shot swing and he matched Viljoen with birdies on the 11^th and 12^th holes, but bogeys on 13 and 16 were his undoing.

Despite an eagle on the par-five 12^th, De Villiers battled to build momentum as he mixed two bogeys and a double on the last with three birdies, posting a 71 that left him in third place on nine-under-par.

South Africans Daniel van Tonder (-6) and Barker (-5) rounded out the top five.

Munster coach Graham Rowntree hailed a top-class performance and a plan coming together as the defending champions moved into the top three of the United Rugby Championship standings with a tenacious 27-22 win over the Bulls in Pretoria.

The bonus point win saw Munster leapfrog the Bulls, deserved reward for beating the South African powerhouses at their home fortress of Loftus Versfeld, where they had previously not been beaten this season in the URC.

A beautifully-controlled first half saw Munster lead 17-10, but the Bulls mounted a strong comeback in the third quarter to take a 22-17 lead. But a red card for a head-on-head tackle by flyhalf Johan Goosen in the 54^th minute was a big turning point against the home side.

A pair of tries in the 58^th and 74^th minutes sealed a hard-fought win for Munster and the 53-year-old Rowntree was a delighted coach afterwards.

“The composure was special today, we had a good plan at altitude and stuck to it. We were in a good place at halftime but not so good in the third quarter. But we are used to these end-of-season pressure games, we have learnt to deal with adversity and move on quickly, and we had a great bench today.

“We had to stick to the plan with great skill, there was no panic. We had to kick very smartly, go away from the way we’ve been doing things for the last two years, when we have generally tried to keep the ball on the field.

“There are still elements of our game that need to be better, but this was an incredible performance against a team we really respect. They have power and pace and can really rip teams apart and we needed to be so much better at the start of the second half. But we believe in our defence, it’s one of the best in the league. It’s got to be against such a powerful team,” Rowntree said.

While Bulls coach Jake White said Goosen’s red card was a 50/50 decision that could have been deemed a ‘rugby incident’, Rowntree said it was an obvious call.

“I thought it was quite clear and easy. There was no mitigation and I was happy with the process. We make sure that we keep our tackles low, we practise that late drop into the tackle,” the former England prop said.

Wing Shane Daly, the scorer of the opening try, said Munster were a team with belief.

“We believe in ourselves, we play against the big teams and we get the results. That’s the big thing about this team,” Daly said.

Munster will next take on the Lions, who slayed top-of-the-log Leinster on the weekend, at Ellis Park.

Lungi Ngidi was left out of the Proteas XI for their previous game at the Sydney Cricket Ground, but he is coming off a man-of-the-match performance against India in Perth, so South Africa’s selection team face something of a quandary for their crunch T20 World Cup meeting with Pakistan on Thursday.

The pitch for the comprehensive win over Bangladesh in Sydney was certainly slower than the one in Perth, where Ngidi absolutely revelled with figures of 4/29. But pace was still effective against Bangladesh, with Anrich Nortje taking 4/10. But spinner Tabraiz Shamsi also shone with 3/20, so conditions on the day could be the decider.

Ngidi admitted after his demolition job on India that he was by no means certain he would even be playing the match.

“I was a bit surprised, I’ve not played much in this World Cup, so to come in on the day and perform against India … I couldn’t have asked for a better day,” Ngidi said.

“I’m very happy and it is probably one of my best performances. You could see there was pace in the pitch. The plan was to not give any width and try to keep it as tight as possible. Dig it into the wicket.”

South Africa will also be very happy with the way all-rounder Wayne Parnell is performing, and he also enjoyed himself against India with 3/15 in his four overs.

“It was about hitting good areas. Sometimes you can get carried away with bowling short. Personally, it was just trying to hit the top of the stumps and keep things simple.

“We have a group of bowlers who are all capable of winning games. Each of us believes that and we know someone can step up on any given day,” Parnell said.

South Africa also know that if they beat Pakistan, then their semifinal place is almost certainly secure because they will have seven points and only one of India or Bangladesh, who play each other on Wednesday, can get to eight points if they win both their remaining matches. Zimbabwe would have to beat both the Netherlands and India, and substantially improve their nett run-rate, to finish on seven points and edge out the Proteas.