Ken Borland

South Africa’s Allan Donald and Herschelle Gibbs are both well-acquainted with the sorrow of World Cup failure, but the pair of cricketing legends believe that the current crop of Proteas who are in the West Indies will end the country’s startling lack of success in showpiece events when they compete in the T20 World Cup final at Bridgetown, Barbados, on Saturday.

The Proteas bowled Afghanistan out for a record low of just 56 on their way to a commanding nine-wicket victory in their semi-final on Wednesday night in Tarouba, Trinidad, and will meet the winners of Thursday’s semi-final between India and England in the final.

Despite being consistently one of the strongest teams in international cricket since returning from isolation in 1991, South Africa’s men’s team have never before reached a major International Cricket Council final. They had lost out in seven previous semi-finals before their triumph against Afghanistan.

Renowned fast bowler Donald and dashing opening batsman Gibbs both played in the 1999 World Cup semi-final against Australia at Edgbaston, which is probably South Africa’s most famous ‘defeat’ of all. The match ended in a tie after Donald was run out, having set off late and dropping his bat, meaning Australia went through based on their higher log-position.

The eventual champions had finished above South Africa thanks to beating them four days earlier by five wickets with two balls to spare in a Super Sixes match at Leeds. Chasing 272, Australia were in trouble on 48 for three when captain Steve Waugh came to the crease. He had just reached his half-century when Gibbs dropped an easy catch from him at midwicket, spilling the ball as he tried to throw it up in a premature celebration. Waugh would go on to score a magnificent 120 not out. Gibbs had earlier been the mainstay of the South African innings with his 101.

“I honestly believe this is South Africa’s time,” Donald told SportsBoom.com, “they are battle-hardened and mentally-conditioned now to winning the very big moments. They have found a way to win every time, someone has made a breakthrough or someone has come up with crucial runs eight matches in a row.

“Coach Rob Walter has brought top character through and made everyone responsible. I really think it is their time. They are playing with fantastic calmness and are really tight-knit as a squad,” Donald, who also fell short in the 1992, 96 and 2003 World Cups, said.

Gibbs told SportsBoom.com that he also believed the time was now to end South Africa’s World Cup jinx.

“T20 cricket is all about momentum and momentum is with the Proteas. They have done it the hard way and now that they’ve got to the final, I believe the cricketing gods will smile on us.

“Our bowling line-up is as good as any and with the pitches doing so much, the bowlers are always in play. Captain Aiden Markram’s decision-making has been really good, he’s made the changes, the big calls, at the right times. He shows a lot of composure in reading the situation. The final will be the ultimate game and playing the situation is the vital thing,” Gibbs, who was also part of the failed 2003 and 2007 campaigns, as well as the 2007, 2009 and 2010 T20 World Cup tournaments, said.

Gibbs, who was one of the most dashing batsmen of his era and would have earned himself millions of rand in franchise cricket had he been born 10 years later, also said that the tricky pitches in the current T20 World Cup had shown modern batters were not willing to grind through tough conditions.

“The pitches have done a lot, it’s been a bit excessive at times, but then average batsmen can look world-class on flat decks – they just hit through the line. The IPL scores were a bit ridiculous this year and the game needed to be brought down to earth a little.

“The tough conditions bring out the temperament of the batsmen and technique is needed. When bowlers have been able to land the ball in the right areas at the right pace, the batters have not been able to handle it because of their flawed techniques. They’re just used to taking the easy route, they don’t grind, they don’t fancy it. You need gritty innings in those conditions.

“At the IPL final for Deccan Chargers at the Wanderers in 2009, I scored 53 not out in the 20 overs because I knew I just had to be there. Anil Kumble bowled the first over for Bangalore and Adam Gilchrist charged down the pitch third ball and was bowled.

“But I said to myself that I must just have a look, the onus was on me, you have to take that responsibility on your shoulders. You have to allow yourself to get to grips with the surface and the tough runs are the most satisfying,” Gibbs said of the Deccan Chargers’ six-run win in South Africa.

The 50-year-old Gibbs said he expected the batsmen to have another mountain to climb at the Kensington Oval in Bridgetown, but the IPL experience of the likes of Heinrich Klaasen, Quinton de Kock, Tristan Stubbs, Markram and David Miller should stand them in good stead.

“In the CPL, that pitch has turned and there have been a lot of close games. Our spinners can come to the party with the ball, but for the batsmen, building partnerships against spin is going to be the key. It’s something they still haven’t mastered and they will need to do it.

“Heinrich Klaasen says the pressure of the IPL will stand them in good stead and they need to show that the pressure does not get to them because BMT has been our achilles heel in the past. But this team has found ways to win,” Gibbs said.

Donald, as coach, and Gibbs will return next week to Edgbaston, the scene of their agonising near-miss in 1999, representing South Africa in the World Championship of Legends, a new six-team T20 tournament that has signed a five-year contract with the England and Wales Cricket Board.

Calls for increased red-ball cricket for the country’s domestic players have been ignored by Cricket South Africa in the fixtures for the forthcoming season, but director of cricket Enoch Nkwe has defended the schedule, saying there will be opportunity for more four-day cricket when there is more sponsorship for the format.

The coming season will once again see just a single round of matches in the CSA 4-Day Domestic competition, plus a five-day final. The majority of the competition will be played between November 4 and December 30, with two rounds in February and the final scheduled to begin on February 28. A shortage of long format cricket has been blamed for the Proteas’ poor results in recent years, especially in Test cricket.

The SA A team will also play three four-day matches against West Indies A between November 21 and December 8. But the programme will then be overwhelmed by T20 cricket, with not only the SA20 in January but then a T20 Challenge for more than seven weeks from March 8 to April 28. Most of the country’s top players will be unavailable for this tournament, with the IPL starting on March 29. And, at the end of a long season and so close to the SA20, there is bound to be an element of ‘cricket fatigue’ amongst fans and players.

“We did look at a double-round first-class competition, but we decided to put more investment into the SA A team,” Nkwe told Rapport. “Making a very strong Test side is a priority, and we can expose a pool of players in the SA A side, allowing Test coach Shukri Conrad to see them up close.

“We spend close to R300 million on all aspects of domestic cricket, on and off the field, and our members [unions] add to that as well. With more investment in four-day cricket, we will be able to have a double round, but it costs more because of the longer accommodation. We’re still looking to engage the corporate world on assisting with that,” Nkwe said.

In terms of a seven-week T20 competition shorn of its top players at the end of the season being a hard sale, Nkwe said it was an opportunity for fringe players to put forward their credentials.

“Ideally we’d like our T20 to be played before the SA20, but it’s a challenge fitting it all in. It all depends on what is more the priority in each season. This season we are starting with the One-Day Cup this month because of the 50-over World Cup beginning in October. Then with the next T20 World Cup in June 2024, we want to play a lot of T20 leading up to that.

“The T20 Challenge will test our system, it’s what we’re looking to implement – to tap into our depth by providing opportunities and growing it. I’ve seen really good T20 players in Division II and hopefully the competition will bring a different energy.

“Yes, there will be pressure at the back end of the season, but we had a long season in 2019, that was a lot more hectic. Managing players has become our number one priority, and also keeping our domestic cricket strong. But the ICC schedule is a challenge, making us juggle things. It will be red-ball cricket that is the priority in some seasons,” Nkwe said.

The former Proteas coach said they would also be encouraging the teams to transact loan agreements to ensure a high standard of play in domestic cricket.

“The loan system has always been there – you’ll remember I brought Lizaad Williams to the Lions in the 2019 T20 Challenge – it’s just not being used. But we’ll be encouraging the coaches to work together because we can’t have our best talent not playing.

“We’ve hit the reset button for domestic cricket because we recognise that it adds a lot of value, it is impactful in the way it feeds into the Proteas. We’ve introduced a five-day final to mirror what the World Test Championship does, SA A playing the middle of the season is a big investment and we’ve reinstated the Colts competition. It’s about a strong pathway moving forward and we are slowly all getting aligned,” Nkwe said.

Readers of Gary Player’s life story will know how much South Africa’s greatest golfer was affected by losing his mother at a young age, but ironically it has been the tragedy that connects him to one of this country’s best rising talents – Garrick Higgo.

Player’s mother Muriel succumbed to cancer in 1943, when he was just eight years old. The last time he saw her was on Christmas Day, two days later she died. Player has said that something broke in him that day and he has been trying to fix it ever since, which partly explains the remarkable passion and tenacity of one of the hardest-working sports stars there has ever been.

Higgo was introduced to golf by his father Guillermo, but in 2008, when he was just nine, the family, which includes two siblings, were involved in a car crash, hit by another vehicle, and his Dad was fatally injured.

“I met Gary Player just after that because we both had a holiday home at Plettenberg Bay and we used to play and practise a lot together, play nine holes in the afternoon. His Mom died when he was eight, which was around the age I was when I lost my Dad. So we connected, it is a real and amazing connection, and it’s been there since before all the good things happened to me.

“It was only when I was around 12 or 13 that I totally understood who Gary Player is. I would be watching the Majors and I would see Gary’s name always popping up. He calls me a lot and he has really helped my game and especially the mental aspects of it,” Higgo says of his remarkable friendship with someone more than sixty years his senior.

It is Higgo who is now playing in the Majors and the lessons Player, who won nine times on golf’s biggest stages, has imparted should stand him in very good stead. The 22-year-old made his Major debut in May at the PGA Championship and made the cut, before really getting to grips with the brutal Kiawah Island course with a 69 in the final round that saw him rise into a tie for 64^th.

In last weekend’s U.S. Open at Torrey Pines, Higgo missed the cut by two strokes, but one should take into account the hectic build-up the Paul Roos Gymnasium product had to that tournament. In a way, Higgo was the victim of his own success as he won the Palmetto Championship the week before, in just his second PGA Tour start.

And with a clearly emotional and overjoyed Player giving Higgo a phone call at the winner’s press conference, the U.S. media understandably had a new sensation to focus on, especially given his three wins in the last year on the European Tour.

“It had an impact because I was very tired mentally, each one of my wins has changed my life and the one on the U.S. PGA Tour the most significantly. My caddy, who is also my best friend, also had to fly back before the U.S. Open because his wife went into labour. So I wasn’t exactly fresh going in, but I played alright and just had a couple of bad bounces.

“I’m learning from each week I play and it made it tough winning the week before the U.S. Open. I didn’t play my best, I was mentally drained, I had a different caddy and I just missed the cut. And I’ve learnt so far in the Majors that you’ve got to have everything working, you have to do everything well. You can’t lose focus, if you are slightly off-line you will be punished.

“But the more I play in the Majors, the better I’ll get. I need to tighten up on my misses and just get more comfortable with everything going on,” Higgo said this week.

Naturally, he knows there is still plenty of room for improvement in his game as well.

“A couple of things in my swing were a bit off so I went back to a draw, that’s the way I like to hit it, I’ve gone back to what is comfortable for me. I’ve also had to work on my short-game technique because the pins are always tucked here in America; I needed to figure out how to get a lot more spin on my chips and get them shorter.

“I wold say my strengths are my mental game, putting and the short game, those are definitely my strongest suits, and my iron play has always been solid. I’m a little streaky off the tee though, I’m generally straight and can hit it a decent distance, but I would like to hit a lot more fairways,” Higgo said.

With arguably the best mental mentor one could have in Player, Higgo certainly seems equipped with the right stuff to keep making waves in world golf. And armed with a simple philosophy, it is understandable why the left-hander has been able to win so quickly at every new rung of the golfing ladder he has climbed.

“I treat every event the same, I don’t make them into big things, whether it’s a Big Easy Tour event or a PGA tournament, and I think that helps mentally. The other guys in a PGA event are obviously going to be better than those in a Big Easy tournament, but I don’t worry about them really, I’m just focused on my own game.”

With the sort of start to his international career Higgo has made, it is the opposition who are surely going to be worrying about him more and more.

While most of South Africa returned to the office on Monday, half of the country’s franchise cricketers left for Potchefstroom to enter a bio-bubble for the Momentum One-Day Cup.

Cricket South Africa announced at the weekend that the schedule for the 50-over competition has been revised, with the Momentum One-Day Cup now being held in just one venue, in a bio-secure environment and being reduced to just 15 matches. The franchises are still in their two pools of three teams each, but they will only play within their pool, two matches against each team.

The Dolphins, Titans and Knights will be in Pool A and will kick off the action from Saturday. The Imperial Lions, Cape Cobras and Warriors are in the other pool which will be in action from January 29.

The top two teams in each pool will then contest the semi-finals on February 11 and 12, with the final on Sunday, February 14.

Dr Shuaib Manjra, CSA’s chief medical officer, said the official reason for the decision was as a precaution against the ever-rising tide of Covid-19’s second wave of infections.

“We have seen the number of cases rise significantly and the second peak is reaching new levels that are higher than the first wave. We have seen infection among our players as well, we had to cancel a four-day match, and we have a duty of care to the players. We also want to ensure the integrity of the competition, we don’t want to have to start cancelling games.

“So the best way to do that is by playing the whole competition in a bubble. There are risks associated with flying around the country for games because airports are one of the major sources of infection, they are high-risk. So we have decided on the precautionary option,” Manjra told The Citizen on Monday.

Cutting the number of fixtures down from seven round-robin games each to just four has been necessary so that the players only have to spend 11 days in the bio-bubble, which has increasingly been shown to be quite a tough environment to cope with mentally.

It is a big drawback for the teams in Pool A though that they will face a gap of more than three weeks between their last match and the semi-finals, giving the Pool B teams a definite advantage in that they finish their round-robin games on February 5, leaving a space of just six days before the semi-finals.

While CSA have well-publicised financial troubles, playing in a bio-bubble is not expected to cost them more money than if the tournament was staged normally, plus there is the added bonus that broadcasters SuperSport and the sponsors are unlikely to suffer reduced content due to games being cancelled.