Ken Borland

Despite all the talk about scoring tries, the Cell C Sharks will be putting their faith in the expertise of their tight five, judging by the team announced yesterday for their opening Vodacom SuperRugby match against the Toyota Cheetahs in Durban on Saturday.

Jannie and Bismarck du Plessis, Tendai Mtawarira, Mouritz Botha and Pieter-Steph du Toit will all be bringing international experience to the field and coach Gary Gold will be hoping they will be laying the most solid of foundations.

Marcell Coetzee is the senior loose forward, with Pumas import Renaldo Bothma getting a SuperRugby debut and Tera Mtembu slotting in at eighthman. Willem Alberts and lock Stephan Lewies are still out with injury.

Pat Lambie and Cobus Reinach form an outstanding halfback pairing, but Gold has a less settled combination at centre. Waylon Murray was born in Durban and schooled at Westville, but has played most of his recent rugby outside the province and he returns to the outside centre berth, with young Heimar Williams alongside him, preferred to exciting young powerhouse Andre Esterhuizen.

SP Marais will be at fullback, but perhaps the Sharks’ greatest attacking threat will be from wings Lwazi Mvovo and S’bura Sithole.

Jean Deysel is on the bench and is the only one of the Japanese-based players to make the match-day squad, with the return of Frans Steyn and JP Pietersen keenly awaited as they will give the backline the experience that is currently lacking in comparison to the tight five.

Matt Stevens, the former British Lions prop, is also on the bench, as is the veteran wing Odwa Ndungane.

The match will be refereed by the Australian, Andrew Lees, and the kick-off is at 5.05pm.

South Africa’s ODI series against the West Indies which started in Durban yesterday is going to be crucial preparation for the World Cup with several players looking to regain confidence ahead of the showpiece tournament that starts on February 14.

To add to the pressure, it is players that are not going to the World Cup – Morne van Wyk and David Wiese spring readily to mind – who have produced the most impressive recent performances.

The likes of Farhaan Behardien, Kyle Abbott and Wayne Parnell had poor returns in the T20 series against the West Indies and they will be desperate to go to Australasia with some success under their belts.

Apart from getting out-of-form players back into nick, captain AB de Villiers also needs to discover how best to marshal his resources during the five ODIs against the West Indies.

Chris Gayle had a grand old time against the South African back-up bowlers in the T20s, which merely highlights the pressure on Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel and Vernon Philander.

Given that South Africa’s main weakness is their bowling, it was strange to see the balance of the team for yesterday’s match against the West Indies: There were only four frontline bowlers – the three pacemen and spinner Imran Tahir – meaning JP Duminy and Farhaan Behardien had to bowl 10 overs between them.

Duminy has just come out of mothballs and so it may take him a while to regain his best bowling form, while at Behardien’s pace there is absolutely no room for error, particularly when he gets to the good batting pitches in Australia.

But that balance makes South Africa extremely vulnerable – teams are undoubtedly going to target the fifth bowling pair of Duminy and Behardien and, if one other bowler has a bad day, then the Proteas will be seriously derailed in the field.

Which is why I believe the selectors have erred in not including a genuine all-rounder in the squad. Wiese brings megawatts of hitting power and is also a canny bowler, while even Ryan McLaren, without being spectacular, is a decent all-rounder.

For those suggesting Parnell should fill the all-rounder’s berth, I would just smile and say ‘no thanks’. For all the talent the left-hander possesses and so-called X-factor, he has battled to perform with any consistency at international level and cannot be relied upon.

Philander has been touted as a possible number seven batsman and has been in good form with the bat in the Test arena, averaging 45 in 2014, and the strength of South Africa’s batting line-up might just make that the best option.

De Villiers, Faf du Plessis and Hashim Amla have all been superb in ODIs over the last year, scoring 10 centuries between them and all averaging over 50, while Quinton de Kock and JP Duminy have both proven their ability at international level, while David Miller can be as destructive as anyone on his day.

But listening to De Villiers’ gung-ho proclamations that South Africa will have the best team at the World Cup, one wonders whether he has identified the key areas of weakness in his side. No captain will ever highlight those weaknesses of course, but South Africa have not been the number one ranked ODI side for any length of time since 2009. They were on top of the pile last October after beating New Zealand away from home, but they were quickly deposed by Australia in November.

Very little has changed since then, except the Proteas have slid further down the rankings to third.

Continuity has always counted for a huge amount with Sharks director of rugby Jake White, so it’s no surprise that Currie Cup coach Brad Macleod-Henderson employs the same strategy, rewarding the team that so impressively beat the Blue Bulls at Loftus Versfeld with just one injury-enforced change for Saturday’s match against the EP Kings in Durban.

Flank Jacques Botes is the only player to miss out on selection, with the veteran suffering from a sprained shoulder joint. His place in the number six jersey will be taken by Khaya Majola, a product of Westville Boys’ High and a member of the 2012 IRB Junior World Championship-winning SA U20 side.

It will be the 22-year-old’s first start after making his debut off the bench last weekend in Pretoria.

There are two changes to the bench with Springbok lock Stephan Lewies returning after an injury-enforced intermission, while scrumhalf Conrad Hoffman is also fully fit again and replaces Hanco Venter amongst the replacements.

Although the Kings are propping up the bottom of the log after seven straight defeats, Sharks forwards coach Paul Anthony is expecting a full-on onslaught from the visitors.

“EP Kings will be difficult because they have nothing to lose, they can play as they want, with some sort of freedom. There won’t be any pressure on them, so we need to settle down, focus and go hard at them. We have to play well and have a good game, we have to man up defensively and we just have to keep winning,” Anthony said.

A climb to second place in the standings is not totally out of the question for the Sharks: if the Lions slip up against Griquas in Kimberley and the KwaZulu-Natalians secure a big bonus-point victory against the Kings, then the rapid improvement in log position will continue for Macleod-Henderson and his team.

Team: 15-SP Marais, 14-S’bura Sithole, 13-Paul Jordaan, 12-Andre Esterhuizen, 11-Lwazi Mvovo, 10-Lionel Cronje, 9-Cameron Wright, 8-Tera Mtembu, 7-Etienne Oosthuizen, 6-Khaya Majola, 5-Marco Wentzel, 4-JC Astle, 3-Lourens Adriaanse, 2-Kyle Cooper, 1-Dale Chadwick. Replacements – 16-Franco Marais, 17-Danie Mienie, 18-Stephan Lewies, 19-Johan Meyer, 20-Conrad Hoffmann, 21-Tim Swiel, 22-Tonderai Chavhanga.