Ken Borland

It is certainly part of Proteas coach Mark Boucher’s mandate to ensure a steady flow of youngsters come through and perform at international level, but his No.1 priority is for South Africa to have a winning cricket team, hence his decision to stick with veteran former captain Faf du Plessis, a move which was thoroughly justified in the first Test against Sri Lanka.

The 36-year-old Du Plessis scored a magnificent, career-best 199, an innings which began under pressure with South Africa slipping from 200 for two when he came to the crease, to 220 for four. Thanks to the class and skill of Du Plessis, and the help of the lower-middle order, the Proteas were able to post 621, setting up an innings win that seemed most unlikely when Sri Lanka scored 396 batting first. It was the third highest first innings total South Africa have conceded in a Test they have gone on to win.

There is no doubt a rebuilding Proteas team thoroughly enjoy having the cool, calm wisdom of Du Plessis still around. Not least of all the new captain, Quinton de Kock.

“It’s important to have senior guys with experience. People always talk about youngsters coming through but you need a balance. Faf really showed his experience, you need that under pressure, he showed his leadership and how to handle the pressure because he’s been through those situations many times before,” De Kock said after the first Test.

“It helps me too to have good leaders in the team and although I’ve never captained a team before in first-class cricket, I have stood next to Faf for most of my Test career so I very much knew what the captaincy was about.”

Boucher, who has taken a lot of flak in the last year for sticking with his former captain, described the presence of Du Plessis as being like “gold dust”.

“I know what Faf is worth, I understand what he has done for South Africa. He’s a great player who went through a bit of a dip in form but his place was never under pressure for me. You need experience and he showed that in this game. He did very good work over the Covid Lockdown period on his technique and he looks very comfortable at the crease now.

“He really wanted to score big runs and he is gold dust to us. It’s nice to have him in such good form and good spirits. We’re going to need him in the big series coming up,” Boucher said after the Centurion triumph.

After the Test series loss to England at the start of 2020, I wrote a column [https://citizen.co.za/sport/sport-columnists/2236293/dont-savage-faf-yet-he-had-a-lot-of-external-issues-to-deal-with/] asking where Du Plessis fitted in in the future red-ball plans of the Proteas. I said the only question I would ask Faf before selecting him for the team would be “Are you still enjoying your cricket?”

The sheer hunger Du Plessis has shown in getting as fit as he has ever been over Lockdown and continuing to work on improving his game are all the proof one needs to know that South Africa’s ninth highest Test run-getter is still loving the sport.

“The Lockdown really helped, mentally it allowed me to freshen up, but I also knew I could control how fit I was. People say I’m at the end of my career but it depends on how good your body is, how fit you are is much more important than your age. So I really pushed myself, I may be 36 but I feel fitter than ever before, I’m moving better now than when I was 23/24. Now the younger guys must stay with me.

“I’ve definitely scored hundreds against better attacks and in hotter conditions and match situations, so this innings was not close to some of those. But from a timing and statement point of view it showed those who doubt my ability that nothing has changed and I am still trying to improve,” Du Plessis said after his 199.

The last part of that sentence – “I am still trying to improve” – is the clincher: the still-hungry Du Plessis should be part of the Test team for the foreseeable future and the often wonky South African batting line-up will definitely reap the benefits of having the man for all situations there.

The former head of sales and sponsor relations, Clive Eksteen, has won his CCMA hearing against Cricket South Africa, who had their dismissal of the former Proteas spinner hit out of the park by the presiding officer.

Eksteen was suspended by CSA on October 29, 2019, along with head of cricket pipelines Corrie van Zyl and chief financial officer Naasei Appiah, and then fired in June for “transgressions of a serious nature”. Former CEO Thabang Moroe had initiated the suspension over the non-payment of Mzansi Super League image rights fees to the South African Cricketers’ Association.

But as the Fundudzi Forensic Report made clear, Moroe and Appiah were actually the ones responsible for the delay in payment and SACA were amongst the witnesses who exonerated Eksteen and Van Zyl. Nevertheless, CSA continued with the disciplinary hearing, with Eksteen’s then line manager Kugandrie Govender, who was then the chief commercial officer but is now the acting CEO, apparently driving the process.

Additional charges were laid against Eksteen that he sold a sponsorship deal to a multinational company for a lower amount than had been approved by the CSA Exco.

“No evidence was presented of Exco having mandated a final amount for the sponsorship; and my superior [Govender] in her evidence failed to mention that she had read a message from me to her, prior to the Exco meeting, in which I had told her of the current offer on the table from the sponsor,” Eksteen said in a statement he released after his dismissal.

Eksteen could not be reached for comment on Thursday, but other high-ranking officials have confirmed the CCMA has ruled in his favour.

Eksteen, who turned 54 on the day he received the good news, has been working in the media industry since his departure from CSA and is highly unlikely to accept his job back. It means CSA are now liable for a large damages claim, given that Eksteen’s dismissal has been found to be unfair and he suffered huge reputational damage as a result.

It is another blow to the cash-strapped, scandal-ridden organisation’s exco. Company secretary Welsh Gwaza was suspended by the interim board this week due to his misgovernance as revealed by the Fundudzi Report, and Govender could now also be in their sights given the costly botching of Eksteen’s disciplinary case.

Many professional cricketers have suffered the indignity of not having their contracts renewed, but very few have rebounded and proven their former employees made a mistake as rapidly and emphatically as Eldred Hawken.

A year ago, the fast bowler who hails from Limpopo had been let go by the Titans and was contemplating playing club cricket in Johannesburg because at least he had family he could stay with in the city. But at the weekend Hawken was named both the Lions’ Player of the Year and the Players’ Player of the Year after his key role in the franchise defending their four-day title and being their best seamer in the Momentum One-Day Cup.

“It has definitely all caught me by surprise. When I lost my contract last year I felt hard done by and defeated. But my old man took me out to golf and said I should give professional cricket one more year, I had managed to build up some savings and he said he would cover me if I needed more. But I felt my future wasn’t moving forward in cricket,” the 31-year-old told The Citizen on Monday.

“I had tried to find a franchise contract somewhere with my agent, but it’s not easy. But Northerns coach Mark Charlton is a good mate and his opinion was that I should keep going, we did some one-on-one work and he said I should play some club cricket in Johannesburg and you never know where it will go. So I was living out of a suitcase, moving between relations, it was a crazy time,” Hawken said.

Having signed with Old Edwardians, Hawken had yet to play a game for them when North-West coach Monty Jacobs phoned him and asked if he was interested in playing first-class cricket for the Potchefstroom-based team. What followed on October 31 at Senwes Park was a pure sporting miracle as Hawken took nine for 14 against Easterns, who had won the toss and elected to bat. Not many have recorded better bowling figures, in fact they are the fourth best in South African first-class history.

“Monty was great to me, he said when I feel like training I must come through to Potch. I did pretty well but then North-West did not play in December and I was on three weeks holiday in Tzaneen when Lions coach Wandile Gwavu phoned to say they needed bowlers and I must come through for a few training sessions the next week.

“I guess taking those nine wickets in an innings said they must take notice of me, it got me into the mix. And then I took five wickets on debut against the Titans, I was man of the match, we won the game and the Lions just backed me from then on, I played every game,” Hawken said.

The wiry Merensky High School product is a bowler blessed with the ability to swing the ball late and, when he is on song, has wrecked many a batting line-up as a first-class record of 205 wickets in 53 matches at an average of just 21 attests.

“I guess I just get hot at a particular moment, all of a sudden I feel things just snap together and I can create things, you just want to jump on it and ride it when that happens. But I felt like I was also a more consistent bowler last season and I’m trying to focus on that. My economy rate proves I am becoming more consistent. Before I lacked confidence in white-ball cricket.

“For the Titans I never really got into a rhythm of playing week in week out, every game I played you felt under heaps of pressure to impress and you still might not play the next match. My goal is still to play Test cricket for South Africa and I know I can get there; if I lose my belief that I can do it then that’s when I should hang up my boots. In the short-term I just want to be part of another season in which the Lions do well,” Hawken said.

As the last year of Hawken’s life has shown, cricket is a queer old game and, if he can produce another great franchise season, who knows where his journey will end?

While sports minister Nathi Mthethwa praised Cricket South Africa on Friday for the establishment of their Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) project, he also used the launch as a convenient time to call for the organisation to release the forensic report into fired former CEO Thabang Moroe and called for the election of fresh leaders at the AGM on September 5.

CSA on Friday announced that Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, a man of significant stature who has served as an acting judge, a Truth and Reconciliation commissioner and is a sought-after legal academic overseas, will be the ombudsman and face of SJN. They also announced nine ambassadors who will help foster the transformation and nation-building objectives of the project in their communities – former Proteas Dinesha Devnarain, Shandre Fritz, Gary Kirsten, Lance Klusener, Marcia Letsoalo, Nulubabalo Ndzundzu, Makhaya Ntini, Geoff Toyana and Monde Zondeki.

The good news of the SJN launch followed the day after Moroe was formally fired with immediate effect by CSA, having been suspended since early December. The CSA Board have refused to make public, even to their own Members Council, the forensic report upon which Moroe’s verdict of being guilty of misconduct was based, but Mthethwa said on Friday in an online address that he expects the organisation to table the report when they meet with him next week.

Many critics believe the CSA Board don’t want to release the report because they are implicated in the same wrongdoing for which Moroe was dismissed.

“I am pleased with the move to establish the SJN project, it is a step in the right direction in the fight for transformation and they heave heard the cries of their ex-cricketers and listened to people like former president Ray Mali on how hurt he is about cricket. This will fight any sort of exclusion, South Africa is so rich in talent but we are not employing our full capacity.

“But when we meet next week for me to respond to CSA’s turnaround plan and the corrective steps they are going to take for the challenges they are facing, I also expect them to share with me and government the forensic report they promised last year to show me when it was available. I look forward to that and then the AGM is in CSA’s hands.

“But the leaders elected should be beyond reproach. Government would frown upon people being elected with questionable credentials. There is a cloud gripping cricket and they definitely need to make a clean move away from that. I would not be happy with a process that is opposed to that,” Mthethwa said.

The irony of a government minister saying CSA should not elect leaders of dubious integrity was exacerbated by where the launch was held, which will also be the location of the ombudsman’s office – Olympic House – the home of Sascoc, themselves embroiled in numerous governance scandals.

Nevertheless, Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, the CSA independent director in charge of transformation, had reason to be enthusiastic about the new body they have rapidly formed in response to the racial storm that has tarnished South African cricket. But despite the impressive figure in charge of SJN and the good intentions shown on Friday, the power that will determine the success of SJN, and whether it will actually improve the lot of future marginalised cricketers, lies with the CSA Board.

“The ombudsman will recommend to the Board what action should be taken, but the aim of the SJN is to engage, heal and restore. If we are mature enough then we can find something positive out of what is revealed, we do not want a legalistic approach. We will be looking at legacy issues and the lessons from the ombudsman will inform how we move forward. “We will support transformation in the rural areas, aggressively, and it’s all about how we make sure those issues do not happen again. The SJN will be integrated with the transformation committee, but as someone said, our future cricketers are not born to be part of what failed. This time around we really will transform and we have to make sure that it is not just on paper but seen on the field,” Kula-Ameyaw said.