Ken Borland

The Proteas Women’s team began their tour of England five weeks ago and their brave draw in the one-off Test seemingly gave them a toe-hold in the multi-format series. But since then it has been a mass of bad fortune and a litany of defeats, which does not augur well for their chances in the Commonwealth Games starting this weekend in Birmingham.

South Africa arrived in England with talk of competing on all fronts, having beaten their hosts in the T20 World Cup earlier in the year before the tables were turned on them in the semifinals. Sadly, there is little doubt that the Proteas have regressed since then, while England have powered on to new heights with a rejuvenated team introducing exciting new blood.

The Proteas have lost both the ODI and T20 series 3-0 since then, but there have been mitigating factors.

Regular captain Dane van Niekerk has still not returned to play since November last year, and key players like fast bowler Shabnim Ismail and all-rounder Chloe Tryon have also struggled with injuries. The shock retirement of Lizelle Lee, on the eve of the ODI series, must have been a damaging mental blow for the team and it is doubtful that it does not speak to some sort of cultural issues within the squad.

And now Marizanne Kapp, who has been turning in massive performances game-after-game, is back home, ruled out of the Commonwealth Games, due to a family emergency in which her brother-in-law suffered serious burns.

While it would be unwise to make a meal of the recent results given these setbacks, questions need to be asked about whether the pipeline is delivering the quality that is needed for South Africa to remain one of the top sides.

It has not helped that senior players like stand-in captain Sune Luus, stalwart batter Mignon du Preez and 33-year-old bowling spearhead Ismail have not enjoyed good tours.

It is turning into a very long tour for the Proteas Women and they need to pull things together with haste to ensure the wheels don’t come off properly in the Commonwealth Games. Coach Hilton Moreeng will need all his powers of inspiration to put this squad back together again.

Sun City is hoping that luck’s with them this year and they are able to host the Nedbank Golf Challenge, but in the meantime South Africa’s juniors will have the good fortune of playing the Gary Player Country Club in a major event as the new Nedbank Junior Challenge was announced on Wednesday.

The prestigious Nedbank Golf Challenge was not held in 2020 due to Covid and not being able to have crowds in attendance, and tournament director Ken Payet said it was still too early to say whether ‘Africa’s Major’ would be able to take place this year. The European Tour have scheduled the tournament for November 11-14.

“We’ve been having discussions and from the Nedbank and European Tour perspective it is still too early and anything we say would be just speculation. We’re obviously hoping to put it on this year, but it depends on the regulations in place. By the end of June or July we will make a call, but there are just too many moving parts at the moment in terms of the regulations and everyone waiting for the third wave,” Payet said on Wednesday.

The good news though is that the country’s top juniors will get the whole famous Gary Player Country Club experience from May 3-5, with the winner of the event getting to be a part of the Nedbank Golf Challenge as an observer in the inner circle.

The 54-hole tournament will offer world amateur ranking points on a par with the SA Amateur Championship and the 78-man field will be drawn from the top-50 on the GolfRSA rankings as well as giving exposure to an excellent array of development golfers, through the SA Golf Development Board.

The winner will receive a replica of the famous crystal-ball Nedbank Golf Challenge senior trophy and might even be able to play a practice round with one of the players in the field for the professional showpiece.

Grant Hepburn, the CEO of GolfRSA, said there has already been an excellent response to the tournament.

“Entries have been open for one week and we are well over-subscribed already with 86 applications, so we will have the cream of the crop playing. We’re very excited to be taking our top amateurs to such an iconic venue. We all grew up watching the Nedbank Golf Challenge and it is such a big part of the South African sporting scene. This event is important for us to keep producing golfers at the highest level,” Hepburn said.