Ken Borland

The Saracens rugby club – the one in London with such strong South African connections – once famously organised a camel race as part of the entertainment before a match they were holding at Wembley Stadium, but venue officials refused to allow it for any number of bureaucratic reasons. Perhaps if they had staged a dromedary race it would have been okay.

The Bulls are hoping such drastic measures to attract a crowd to Loftus Versfeld are not necessary for their last home game of the United Rugby Championship regular season, against Glasgow Warriors on Friday night. Amidst the drama of trying to nail down both a URC playoff spot and a place in the lucrative European Champions Cup next season, Bulls captain Marcell Coetzee spoke on Tuesday of the lift spectators have given the team over the last few weeks. He even dared to suggest the Bulls are going to embrace the pressure of two must-win games to end the round-robin phase.

“The last few weeks have really been must-win games and we’ve had phenomenal support at Loftus. The team has fed off that,” Coetzee said.

“We put ourselves into this position where we now have to fight for a playoff place, but we embrace it. At one stage we were bottom of the log, and the fightback just shows the quality and culture in our squad.

“Anything can still happen and Glasgow are a dangerous team. We’re not reading too much into their scoreline last weekend, but the Stormers showed how to break them down by being patient.

“The Stormers knew that sticking to their system would pay off, they created opportunities and then took them. We’ve created a few opportunities ourselves, but we have to make sure we take them,” Coetzee said.

Glasgow Warriors are the leading Scottish side in the competition, but they were hammered 32-7 last weekend by the Stormers in Cape Town.

Coetzee is only 30 years old so the star loose forward is still far too young to be pensioned off when it comes to international aspirations, but he says his focus at the moment is forming a tight-knit unit with Elrigh Louw and Cyle Brink.

“At the moment I just want to plough back into the Bulls team, helping guys like Elrigh, and enjoy my rugby,” Coetzee said. “We have a very good loose trio group, it’s lovely to be here and have all those guys behind you.

“Cyle has come into the system very well too, although he struggles a bit with the Afrikaans! He has added a lot of value and is growing every game, he also helps a lot at the breakdown. We are all busy making each other better,” Coetzee said.

Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi bowling and Quinton de Kock and Temba Bavuma batting, although not in concert, will be the entertainment to savour when the Four-Day Franchise Series pool stage comes to an end with the televised Jukskei Derby between the Imperial Lions and the Titans at the Wanderers starting on Tuesday.

While Rabada and Bavuma both played key roles in the Lions’ triumphant T20 Challenge campaign, and Ngidi was superb for the Titans, De Kock was last seen in action during the ill-fated Tests in Pakistan more than a month ago. Since then the wicketkeeper/batsman has been relieved of the Proteas captaincy that was clearly weighing him down, and the Titans, who are looking to secure their place in the four-day final, will be hoping a refreshed De Kock is able to make sweet music with his bat.

The Titans, with 86.84 points, are trying to hold off the Warriors (72.68) to win Pool B and qualify for the final from March 25-29. Beating the Lions, who are out of contention at the bottom of Pool A, will not only assure the Titans of top spot in their pool but could allow them to overtake the points tallies of the Knights (102.08) and Dolphins (100.92) and host the final. But that would depend on neither the Knights beating the Cape Cobras at Newlands nor the Dolphins winning against the Warriors in Pot Elizabeth.

“Trying to fit Lungi, Quinny and Heinrich Klaasen back into this side is the sort of problem I like to have,” Titans coach Mandla Mashimbyi said. “But the danger is that you can have all the names in the book, but you still have to go out and do the job. So the message I will keep pushing is that you are now Titans players, not Proteas, and you have to look after this blue badge now,” Mashimbyi said, putting his hand to the logo on his shirt.

The Lions and Titans may geographically be close, but there is always a fierce rivalry between the two sides and the hosts will certainly not be lacking motivation at the Wanderers. Especially since they suffered a disappointing defeat against the Dolphins at their stronghold earlier this week, which ended their chances of defending their four-day title.

No spectators are going to be allowed at Randpark Golf Club when the prestigious Joburg Open is held there from November 19-22, but there will be plenty of entertainment for golf fans at the club both before and after that with the installation of the new InRange ball-tracking facility at their driving range.

InRange is a system designed by engineers in Stellenbosch who were global leaders in the field of tracking technology for radio telescopes and radar, who turned their attention to tracking the flight of golf balls. The result is not only a package that is used by leading professionals, golf clubs and coaches, but which also has tremendous entertainment value.

Golfers previously going through the motions on the driving range can now track each and every shot and can play under added pressure in the system’s game mode that allows multiple players to compete against each other in contests such as Longest Drive or Bullseye. With four buckets of balls costing less than R400 for a foursome, this sounds like great fun for a group of golfing mates.

The technology is also available on an app, allowing individuals to enjoy the experience at a cheaper cost.

But for the weekend of November 19-22, Randpark will become a place of national importance and closed to the public as the European Tour and their top international golfers arrive to participate in the Joburg Open. As Randpark GC chief executive Francois Swart explained, they simply cannot risk any Covid transmission occurring, especially with South Africa hosting the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek and then the South African Open at Sun City on the following weekends.

“It’s very important that the safety protocols are adhered to and we have to manage the bubbles and ensure the safety of the players, not just for this tournament but for the next two as well. I think not having spectators is the better call and unfortunately not even our members will be allowed at the club. It’s the right call because it’s a big investment.

“The players are the ones who have the most risk and if any of them get exposed then they’re out for the rest of the tournaments as well. Not having spectators is normal practice at this time on the European Tour and they have had a lot of input because they have staged big tournaments already this year. They’ve given us valuable insights and I have all the confidence in the world that the Joburg Open will go off beautifully,” Swart told The Citizen.

The Indian Premier League is a circus, a jamboree, a get-rich-quick scheme and a money-laundering device according to some people, but it is also a gathering of top-class cricketers from the world over, a cacophony of entertainment and a two-month explosion of non-stop action.

Coming from South Africa (how many times a day do you hear a plaintive “only in Africa”?), we should understand that the IPL does things differently and just because the English don’t get it, it doesn’t mean we should turn our noses up at it either.

The best approach to the IPL is probably to just enjoy it for what it is – pretty mindless entertainment and a wonderful way for our marvellous cricketers to be financially rewarded – and not try to fathom how it all works, whether it is financially viable or whether good standards of corporate governance are being followed.

Because if you do probe beneath the garishly-coloured uniforms, skimpy cheerleader outfits and Shah Rukh Khan’s shiny suits, you are going to find controversies aplenty.

The IPL has tentacles that reach as high as the Indian government: When the Kochi Tuskers were dumped in 2011 for defaulting on payments to the governing body, it led to an Indian minister resigning from the cabinet because he had been using his influence improperly.

This year’s major controversy has been the banning of Sri Lankan players from Chennai, the home of the Super Kings, because the chief minister of Tamil Nadu has said she cannot guarantee their security in the wake of protests over the treatment of Tamils in the island just to the south of the mainland.

How a vote-seeking politician, pandering to populist interests, has been able to hold a multi-billion dollar international tournament to hostage has baffled many people. But then the president of the Board of Control for Cricket in India, who own the IPL, is Narayanaswami Srinivasan, whose cement company just happens to be based in Chennai and which owns the Super Kings.

The conflicts of interest are glaring, but that’s just how things operate in Indian cricket and the Super Kings are certainly not the only team to have stakeholders with interests in the administration as a whole.

Cricket South Africa have shown a tendency to believe this is how things can be run over here as well, but hopefully the public outrage that forced them to ditch former chief executive Gerald Majola, who was corrupted by the IPL millions, will keep the current board on the straight and narrow.

Although the IPL has attracted much more money than any other cricket tournament in the history of the game, there are strong indications that the current largesse is not financially sustainable.

The last two seasons have seen the lowest television viewership figures of the six years the event has been in existence, while the base price the new Hyderabad Sunrisers paid for the bankrupt Deccan Chargers was roughly half as much as the BCCI charged for the Pune and Kochi franchises in 2010.

And Venky Mysore, the chief executive of the Kolkata Knight Riders, admitted recently that, “Everybody has become conscious that player costs are going up and clearly it is not sustainable from a franchise point of view.”

Allegations of match-fixing and black money (unaccounted for) payments saw five players banned last year, but those in the know suggest there is much more malfeasance waiting to be uncovered.

In other embarrassments, Shah Rukh, the owner of the Knight Riders, was given a five-year ban from the Wankhede Stadium by the Mumbai Indians after he was involved in an unseemly altercation with security there last year, while Dale Steyn was threatened with a law suit by the Chargers for not fulfilling his contract, even though they no longer existed as a franchise!

This was also after Steyn, and Bangalore Royal Challengers star AB de Villiers, were both paid several months late by their franchises.

While Steyn and De Villiers are in the prime of their careers and obviously command top dollar, one of the charms of the IPL is that it allows international stars to keep entertaining their fans late in their careers.

Instead of sitting in their rocking chairs, the likes of Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Ricky Ponting and Brett Lee are still out there performing for two months a year.

It was Lee who began IPL 6 on the perfect note by bowling India U19 star Unmukt Chand with a cracking first ball of the tournament; and was then clobbered for four by Mahela Jayawardene off the second delivery.

And who cannot be thrilled with the sight of Ponting and Sachin Tendulkar opening the batting together for the Mumbai Indians?

There are 76 matches in all, so there will no doubt be many more oohs and aahs to come.

South Africa is well-represented by Albie Morkel, Chris Morris and Faf du Plessis at the Chennai Super Kings; Johan Botha, Morné Morkel and Roelof van der Merwe at the Delhi Daredevils; David Miller (Punjab Kings XI), Jacques Kallis and Ryan McLaren at KKR, Wayne Parnell (Pune Warriors), De Villiers with the Royal Challengers and Steyn, JP Duminy and Quinton de Kock with rookies Hyderabad Sunrisers.

The Delhi Daredevils and Bangalore Royal Challengers, both consistent challengers for the title, are coached by South Africans in Eric Simons and Ray Jennings respectively, while Allan Donald is Pune’s bowling coach.

Interference by team owners – one coach famously had to field a player who could hardly walk – is a hardship they have to put up with. But if the dollars they are earning don’t compensate sufficiently, then they can always take a cue from the rest of us and just realise that it’s two months of cricket that doesn’t really mean a whole lot.

It’s more about entertainment than sporting excellence, and we can be thrilled by that too.

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-04-10-ipl-enjoy-it-while-it-lasts/#.VcH4hfmqqko