Ken Borland

All the hard work done by the Proteas on their 50-over cricket, as shown by their 3-0 whitewash of India, was ruined in ignominious fashion on Wednesday as they were thrashed by nine wickets by Bangladesh at SuperSport Park in Centurion, giving the tourists an historic first series win in South Africa in any format.

The heavy defeat can be laid at the door of a batting failure that saw the Proteas dismissed for just 154 – their lowest ever total against Bangladesh – in only 37 overs.

But the way Bangladesh dealt with the South African bowlers was also pretty humiliating as they raced to victory with 141 balls to spare, led by captain Tamin Iqbal’s punishing and brilliant 87 not out off just 82 balls.

Electing to bat first seemed the right course of action as Janneman Malan and Quinton de Kock cruised to 46 without loss inside seven overs.

But from the moment De Kock (12) holed out at long-off off spinner Mehidy Hasan Miraz, the Proteas batting fell to pieces.

Malan, having gone to 28 off just 31 deliveries, went into his shell and struggled to 39 off 56 before being caught behind off Taskin Ahmed, who had removed Kyle Verreynne (9) in his previous over.

Temba Bavuma (2) and Rassie van der Dussen (4) fell cheaply as 66/2 rapidly became 83/5.

David Miller (16) and Dwaine Pretorius (20) rebuilt for half-a-dozen overs, but the probing Taskin removed them both as South Africa slumped to 122/7.

They were thankful for Keshav Maharaj’s sensible 28 getting them past 150, but clever cricket was sorely lacking from the Proteas batsmen as they were bowled out with 13 overs remaining in their innings.

On a pitch that offered uneven bounce, Taskin was outstanding and finished with 5/35 in nine overs, the first five-wicket haul for Bangladesh in their 24 ODIs against South Africa.

Left-arm spinner Shakib offered fine support with 2/24 in nine overs, while left-arm paceman Mustafizur Rahman exerted pressure at the other end by conceding just 23 runs in his seven overs.

Captain Tamim then showcased his special qualities with the bat as he stroked 14 fours. The left-hander manipulated and placed the ball wonderfully well and his timing was as sweet as the taste of victory will be for his team.

Liton Das (48 off 57) was an admirable foil as the openers put on 127 for the first wicket, Bangladesh’s best ever opening partnership in South Africa. Liton eventually fell when he drove Keshav Maharaj to a leaping Temba Bavuma at extra cover, taking the added disgrace of a 10-wicket defeat off the table, but Bangladesh were barely past halfway through their overs when victory was completed.

Compared to the focused brilliance of the Bangladesh bowlers, the Proteas attack had little to feel special about.

The Proteas may be performing at a renewed level of excellence at the moment, but Cricket South Africa continue to come hard at head coach Mark Boucher, who has now been formally charged with “gross misconduct” over the allegations of racism made against him by the Social Justice and Nation-Building report.

In what one CSA insider described as “an aggressive attack” on Boucher, the record-breaking wicketkeeper/batsman was served with charges under the organisation’s disciplinary code the day before the ODI series against India began.

Having pulled off an improbable 2-1 win in the Test series against India after losing the first match, the Proteas then registered an impressive victory in the first ODI in Paarl in midweek.

But the CSA Board’s antagonistic attitude towards their own national team and management was shown when they failed to send out any form of congratulatory message to the captain, players or coaching staff for beating the then No.1 side in Test cricket. CSA have made a habit in recent years of sending out congratulatory statements for even minor triumphs.

The SJN report accused Boucher of discrimination and using racial slurs relating to Paul Adams’ complaint of the Proteas team using a song referring to him as “a brown shit in the ring” during their fines meetings back in the late 1990s.

CSA on Thursday afternoon confirmed that Advocate Terry Motau (SC) would chair the disciplinary hearing, with the parties meeting on January 26 to determine a timetable for proceedings.

Legal sources have suggested that CSA’s already depleted kitty could be emptied even further if they try to use the SJN report to dismiss either Boucher or director of cricket Graeme Smith. Informed sources have indicated enquiries are still being made into whether Smith should also be charged, but that matter is complicated by the fact that the former Proteas captain is technically an independent contractor.

Lawyers representing several respondents implicated in the report have labelled it as “flawed” and have pointed out that the ombudsman, Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, admitted himself that his findings were “tentative” and that he could not make “definitive findings” based on “untested evidence”.

The impartiality of the lawyers involved has also been called into question because 260 paragraphs of the final report were merely copied-and-pasted directly from the complainants’ submissions.

The fact that such a significant accusation as racism has now been publicly made against Boucher and Smith is bound to lead to major legal challenges.

“They are not going to go quietly, they’re not just fighting for their jobs but also to clear their names,” a source close to both former Proteas stars said.

We know what to expect from David Miller, but Kagiso Rabada has always trained hard and the considerable work he has been putting into his batting lately brought reward as the pair of left-handers steered South Africa to a thrilling four-wicket victory with just a ball to spare over Sri Lanka in their T20 World Cup match in Sharjah on Saturday.

Miller stole the limelight with successive sixes in the final over, but Rabada played a vital role with a four and a six in 13 not out off just seven balls.

Rabada’s four was down to the third man boundary and it brought the winning runs when the Proteas needed a single to win. But his six, a glorious drive over long-off, in the penultimate over was a vital and magnificent strike when South Africa were needing 22 off just nine deliveries.

“KG always wins the shot of the day competition,” bowling hero Tabraiz Shamsi said after the match in which the wrist-spinner took 3/17 in his four overs. “No matter the situation, he pulls off the shot of the day, he does it so often.

“But it was a really special six today and reward because he puts in a lot of hard work on his batting. It was one of those games where you can’t guess which way it’s going to go.

“I was really nervous, not 100% sure, but you’re confident the guys in the middle can pull it off. It was really nice to see David and KG finish it off.

“This is a new team and we’ve won those sort of moments more often than we’ve lost them,” Shamsi said.

Their opening loss to Australia put the Proteas on the back foot, never mind the drama of the last week surrounding BLM and Quinton de Kock, but Shamsi said the team are not afraid to dream they can still win the World Cup.

“We’re very comfortable with where we are sitting. We are all ready to win our remaining games, that’s all that matters to us, we are here to try and win the World Cup.

“There’s a World Cup to be won, so how would anyone not be passionate about that? We’re just trying to win every game and if we don’t believe we can win the World Cup then we should rather stay home and watch on TV.

“Every game someone different is doing a great job for the team and we are really happy with the way things went in our last two matches. Sure, we are up against some very strong teams, but so are we,” Shamsi said.

One thing that has become clear in this year’s Carling Currie Cup is that the ‘smaller’ unions, those not playing in Europe, cannot be taken for granted and the belief and hunger now flowing through the veins of the Griquas and Pumas players is going to make them hard to stop in the last three weeks of competition.

Griquas are third on the log and the Pumas fourth, with just the Sharks and Bulls ahead of them. At least one of them is going to make the semi-finals as they play each other in Kimberley on Saturday, but they will both go through if Western Province fail to beat the Sharks in Durban.

For the Pumas, the success of their season has been based on the realisation that they cannot just rely on their forwards to grind opponents down and they have produced some fine attacking rugby with ball-in-hand too.

“Our forwards were our go-to and they are still one of our strong points. But we said that we must play balanced rugby, we can’t just rely on our forwards for 80 minutes. The engine must rest a bit as well! So we have spread the workload, we are also using the kicking game more and overall we are just playing with more ball.

“When we played in SuperRugby Unlocked last year we got exposed to playing against the very best guys, Springboks included. We saw that we can beat them, but we just needed to rectify the small mistakes that were costing us. We spent two months focusing on that in pre-season and now we are starting to really get belief that we can beat the big unions,” ever-dangerous Pumas fullback Devon Williams told The Citizen on Wednesday.

Griquas wing Daniel Kasande also said there was a link between last year’s experiences and all the narrow defeats they suffered and their strong showing in this year’s Currie Cup.

“Not much has changed in terms of our system and structure from last year, but we had a lot of narrow losses then, things would just not go for us at the end of matcheis. So since then we have been fine-tuning our play and getting in sync with each other. Being together now for two seasons, you can see the chemistry in how we play.

“Before, every time we went into a competition we were the new boys and you get a bit of cold feet. But once you are in with the big boys for a while, you grow in confidence. You start to feel that you can dominate and it was very special beating Western Province at Newlands, once you do that sort of thing once, you believe you can do it again and again,” Kasande told The Citizen.

The way Griquas and the Pumas have contributed to the competition, one hopes many of their players are voted into the team for the newly-created Carling Champions Match – an all-star Currie Cup team chosen by the public – on November 6.