Ken Borland

David Miller crushing the Irish bowlers like ants at the end of the innings was one of the last pieces of the Proteas puzzle to fall into place in the second T20 International and they will be looking to build on that and complete a 3-0 whitewash in the third and final game in Belfast on Saturday evening.

Miller smashed 75 not out off 44 balls, including hitting four sixes in the final over, to lift South Africa to 159/7, a total which proved well beyond Ireland on a tricky pitch. Ironically, it was the failure of the top-order, the Proteas slumping to 58/5, that provided Miller with the opportunity for a lengthy stint at the crease, in which he posted his first half-century since his 85 not out against Pakistan in Lahore in February.

A better display by the top-order, with the Proteas still pondering their best combination there, will be one of the boxes they will want to tick on Saturday night.

But for Miller, there was just satisfaction that a run of minor contributions had come to an end.

“I have not really felt out of form, but in T20 cricket over the last six games, the situations have been tough. Which is why I try and stay away from worrying about form, I just try to make an impact. I want to be hard on myself and do well every game, but doing that in my role at No. 6 is very difficult. Today I had a lot of time to bat and I’m very chuffed to have put the team in a winning situation.

“I have been a bit low in runs, but I’ve been coming in low down the order and haven’t had a proper opportunity to score big runs. So I’ve just been trying to have an impact, rather than thinking about trying to have an average of 50, it’s the strike-rate I look at. So I just trust my instincts, I try and stay in the right mindset, that never changes,” Miller said.

The 32-year-old Miller also paid tribute to another top-class bowling display by the spinners and a vital contribution with the bat by Wiaan Mulder, with whom he shared a sixth-wicket stand of 58 off 43 balls. Wrist-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi took three for 14 and orthodox left-armer Bjorn Fortuin claimed a career-best three for 16.

“The spinners have been phenomenal, we are really blessed with Shamo, Bjorn and George Linde. You can’t necessarily play all of them but it’s a good problem to have since the T20 World Cup is obviously the goal and we are building nicely. But we are still going game-by-game.

“Wiaan also played exceptionally well, that was probably the matchwinning partnership. His intent was great, he took the pressure off me and looked to take the bowlers down. I would like to bat higher but at the same time there is a bigger goal and the other guys are finding their groove in the batting line-up. There’s a particular role required of me, but I love opportunities like this one,” Miller said.

And now the pieces are starting to fall into place.

Many people were taken by surprise when CSA director of cricket Graeme Smith, totally unprompted, announced his support for Indian cricket chief Sourav Ganguly to become the new ICC chairman. It was an opinion which was backed by CSA chief executive Jacques Faul.

It was a development that certainly took CSA president Chris Nenzani by surprise, wherever he has been hiding out from the justice that surely deserves to be meted out to him for all but destroying our cricket. He has been silent about all the important matters that have been going on in the game in 2020, such as the efforts to rebuild South African cricket, all the disciplinary hearings that are going on, the resignations of board directors and even the Covid-19 crisis.

But Nenzani poked his head above the parapet to put Smith and Faul right, talking about things like “due process” when it comes to Board matters. What he was really saying was “Graeme and Jacques, you look after the onfield matters and leave the politics to me”.

The reason Nenzani suddenly saw fit to do something presidential was, of course, that he has designs on being the next ICC chairman himself. Which is an absolutely laughable proposition because the rest of the world knows how thoroughly self-serving and incompetent he has been in running the South African game.

It would seem, however, that Smith and Faul have a better grasp of global cricket politics than Nenzani does. In fact I am certain of this because I remember Nenzani telling the media in December 2017 in Port Elizabeth that they would force India to release players for the T20 Global League by refusing South African players permission to play in the IPL!

And now this week we have the news that the ICC T20 World Cup, scheduled to be held in Australia in October/November, is likely to be postponed.

That would allow India to fill that gap with the IPL, which is massively important for them as the richest event in world cricket. India, largely on the back of the success of the IPL, bring in around 65% of global cricket revenue and are also the most lucrative team to host because of the massive broadcast rights fees their national team demands. That is why other countries are quite understandably eager to keep in India’s good books.

India are scheduled to make a full tour of Australia from October which is critical for the finances of the game Down Under. But they will need to abide by Australian government public health protocols which are likely to include lengthy quarantine periods and lockdowns, which will not be very pleasant for them.

And that is why Cricket Australia, who stand to make A$300 million from the tour, are falling over backwards to appease India. As a reward for the BCCI agreeing to tour, Australia look set to accept the postponement of the ICC T20 World Cup (it wasn’t even on the summer schedule they announced this week) thereby creating a window for the IPL to be held.

From a South African viewpoint, it seems that Smith and Faul, who travelled to India before Lockdown for very constructive meetings with Ganguly and the BCCI, are in on the game and have said they would be comfortable with the ICC T20 World Cup being shifted to February/March next year. And they have also publicly backed Ganguly.

The pay-off for South African cricket is that India seem committed to coming here at the end of August for three T20s that could add some $50 million to CSA’s depleted coffers.

The importance of India as a global roleplayer in cricket should not be underestimated and the vitriol they are often subjected to is also unwarranted. The fact is they bring the most money into the game because Indians love cricket more than any other nation, and so they should have one of the loudest voices in the ICC boardroom.

The key, of course, is for them to use that power responsibly, and Smith and Faul certainly seem assured that Ganguly, who started India’s blossoming as a global power as captain back in 2000, understands what is best for the modern game as a whole.

Herschelle Gibbs was South Africa’s leading run-scorer as they dominated the group stages of the 1999 World Cup, only to fall agonizingly short in their notorious tied semi-final against Australia, but he believes all-rounders were the key to their success in England that year and that is an area that has the potential to be a problem for the Proteas as the tournament returns there next year.

South Africa had Lance Klusener, named the player of the tournament, backed by Jacques Kallis and Shaun Pollock, in 1999 and the current Proteas obviously don’t have all-rounders of that proven quality and experience at the moment.

“In 1999 we had three all-rounders and that led us to probably our best chance of winning the World Cup. A strong one-day team always has good all-rounders, but I think at the moment, all-rounders are our biggest headache. The depth is not quite there; we have Chris Morris in and out the side and Andile Phehlukwayo and Wiaan Mulder blow a bit hot and cold for me.

“So that’s going to be a big question mark for the selectors. Conditions in England could suit a guy like Vernon Philander perfectly. He can bat, but there are question marks over how effective he is in limited-overs cricket. Otherwise the bowlers are pretty sorted and it’s nice to see Dale Steyn firing again, bowling in the late 140s and looking great,” Gibbs told Saturday Citizen at the Sanlam Cancer Challenge, where he was playing golf as one of the celebrity delegates.

Like politicians trying to impress the voters, those players who are not assured of their places in the World Cup squad will be mounting one last desperate push to impress the selectors in the next couple of months. Gibbs believes there are still enough matches before the World Cup to sort out any deficiencies in the team.

“There are enough ODIs before the World Cup and there’s still a chance for some new faces. We’re probably also still lacking a bit in specialist batting depth. Dean Elgar was given a chance, but the selectors have probably decided that he’s not a one-day player. So there’s more pressure on Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock, especially with AB de Villiers having retired, and Quinny is going to have to bear the brunt of the run-scoring I think.

“Our variety in the attack is also a bit short – Ngidi, Steyn, Rabada and Phehlukwayo are all right-armers, and then there’s Tabraiz Shamsi or Imran Tahir and JP Duminy to bowl a bit. So we might lack a bit of variety, but we might get away with it if the overhead conditions help us. But the all-rounders and the top-order are the two main question marks for me,” Gibbs said.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20181013/282428465149110

There has been a lot of talk recently around Gauteng cricket of revolutionising the game, but so far their only notable action has been to strip the most successful Black African coach in franchise cricket of his duties, making him the fall guy for a poor season by the Highveld Lions.

Geoff Toyana was the first Black African head coach of a franchise when he was appointed in 2012 and he steered the Lions to four trophies in the next four seasons. There have been lean pickings since then, but there have certainly been extenuating circumstances – Toyana has had to practically rebuild a whole team due to the matchfixing scandal and the retirement of several senior players.

Sure, Toyana will still be employed by the Gauteng Cricket Board as High Performance Coach, but there is little doubt that this is a demotion and a slap in the face for someone who has been at the forefront of transformation at franchise level.

The last season was particularly disappointing for the Lions – they finished last in the Sunfoil Series and fifth in both the Momentum One-Day Cup and RamSlam T20 Challenge – but when board members come into the changeroom mid-season and lambast the players with threats that eight of them will lose their contracts, it’s hardly conducive to inspirational performances.

Toyana will be the first to admit that he was probably not at his best as coach either, but again, a more sensitive administration would have understood the reasons why. It could not have been easy for the Soweto Cricket Club product to start the summer as the favourite to be the new Proteas coach and then watch it all unravel.

Add to that massive disappointment the family bereavements he also had to deal with, and it was clear Toyana was a man under severe pressure this last summer.

But the 44-year-old still had an additional year to run on his contract and surely the right thing to do, especially if one is serious about transformation and not just political powerplays, would have been to wipe the slate clean on the last season and allow Toyana to finish his term. Based on results, a less knee-jerk decision could then be taken.

Especially since this is a man who has added so much to the reputation of Gauteng cricket. Let’s not forget that before he became Highveld Lions coach, the franchise had won just one paltry trophy in eight seasons. Under Toyana’s watch, six new Test cricketers, ranging from Quinton de Kock to Stephen Cook, as well as six other limited-overs internationals were produced for the Proteas.

The talk in the Wanderers corridors is that Enoch Nkwe is in line to replace Toyana, which would make sense (at the right time) because the 35-year-old is intimately linked with Gauteng cricket. Currently the assistant coach of the national women’s side, and having fulfilled a similar role for the men’s team in the Netherlands, Nkwe played for the franchise for seven seasons before coaching the semi-pro provincial side.

But there is also talk that the Gauteng Cricket Board have got themselves into a tangle that has led to them axing Toyana. So confident were they that Toyana would be in the Proteas coaching set-up that they allegedly bought Nkwe out of his contract with Haarlemsche Cricket Club and the union now cannot afford to be paying the salaries of two head coaches at the same time.

Perhaps if the board were not so busy with putting out the regular fires that spring up from all the infighting and politicking – if it were all about the transformation needs of the game that would be fine, but the impression is that most of it is all about the personal benefit of the egos involved – then they would be more able to keep their eye on the ball and ensure the franchise is excelling where it really matters – out on the field.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20180414/282595968496043