Ken Borland

The players of Australia, England and India are probably the fat cats of the cricketing world, given the riches of their respective boards and the hefty contracts they enjoy. While I have no problem with top international sportsmen being handsomely paid, it would be nice now and then to see them display some perspective and gratitude for living the dream.

The Indian Premier League of course offers the biggest payday of them all, which is why player power has ensured no major international cricket is staged during that tournament. Again, that is the economics of the game and I don’t mind that.

But the players should just be honest about the fact that the IPL is their biggest priority and, as the players of Australia and England have shown, the riches on offer there are often more important to them than any ethical considerations or obligations to grow the game as a whole.

The self-same Australian and England players who turned their noses up at playing in South Africa and possibly coming into contact with the Covid-19 pandemic that was recording about 3000 cases a day in December and 1000 in March were happy to go to India for the IPL when cases were already at more than 80 000 a day. It was a staggering display of hypocrisy and double standards.

And it got worse because as soon as the IPL itself was put under threat, it was the Australian players who began bleating about the government having an obligation to organise special flights out of India for them and change the law that applied to everyone else that the borders were closed for people who had recently been to India.

It’s ironic, but these are people who have been living in a bubble since way before Covid-19 arrived. They live in their own mollycoddled world where everything is taken care of for them, they are treated as demi-gods and too many of them seem totally out of touch with the common person. It’s why things like Sandpapergate happened because pampered stars like Steven Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft are out of touch with reality.

It was absolutely infuriating the way the Australian players dumped the South African tour at the last moment as soon as it meant they might have some difficulties getting to India thereafter for the IPL, which was always going to be a much harder bubble to manage than the one here.

Likewise the English players, who used a couple of positive tests outside of their squad to hightail it home, doing great damage to Cricket South Africa’s reputation and coffers.

No wonder cricket fans around the world get so angry when talk of the Big Three dictating the game comes up.

The bad vibrations of karma will no doubt follow these selfish cricketers and it was hard to feel any sympathy for the Aussie players who were stuck in India for a while; they did after all land up slumming it in the Maldives. Even the England players have now shown their true colours and they have not only been criticised by former captains like Mike Atherton and Michael Vaughan for what they did in South Africa, but their own England and Wales Cricket Board CEO Tom Harrison, who has been very helpful to CSA, now knows what they are like when it comes to negotiating new contracts.

To end on a positive note though: Cricket South Africa, chief medical officer Dr Shuaib Manjra and his doctors, and the compliance officers, all deserve enormous credit for how well-run our bubbles were last summer. There were only negligible issues and they have proven how safe it will be for any touring teams to come here.

Mitchell Starc celebrates another wicket as the Sydney Sixers march on to the title

The Sydney Sixers sealed the title in the fourth edition of the Champions League T20 in a flurry of hefty blows from openers Michael Lumb and Brad Haddin at the Wanderers, but it was the consistent excellence of their pace attack that had vanquished all opposition before that.

Left-armer Mitchell Starc was the leading wicket-taker in the competition, with Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Moises Henriques all in the top-10 as well. Hazlewood was also the most economical of the bowlers who delivered at least 10 overs in the tournament.

Josh Hazlewood - penetrative & economical

The Highveld Lions were the beaten team in the final, but still emerged with much credit as the Australians were the only side to beat them during the competition.

The Titans were the other South African representatives and they also did not let the country down as they reached the semi-finals, where they were beaten by two wickets by the Sixers in a last-ball thriller.

Four venues – SuperSport Park, the Wanderers, Newlands and Kingsmead – were used as South Africa hosted the tournament for the second time, but rain unfortunately also made an unwanted appearance at the start of a wet summer as four games were washed out.

Both the Lions and Titans were away to fast starts as they won their opening two matches.

Jacques Rudolph and CJ de Villiers blew away the Perth Scorchers in Centurion, while the Lions once again claimed the scalp of the Mumbai Indians at the Wanderers on the opening weekend of action, thanks to the batting of Neil McKenzie and Quinton de Kock, and the superb bowling of Dirk Nannes and Aaron Phangiso.

It soon became obvious that Phangiso was able to outwit international-class batsmen as he continued to excel in victories over the Chennai Super Kings and Yorkshire, and the semi-final against the Delhi Daredevils. The left-arm spinner finished the tournament with 10 wickets and an economy rate of just 5.36.

The Titans brushed aside the challenge of the Auckland Aces in their second match, but were then blown off course by a heavy defeat at the hands of the Kolkata Knight Riders. Their final pool game, against the Daredevils, was washed out and they were then devastated to lose their semi-final off the last ball of the match.

The final was a one-sided affair as the Sixers, who best understood the value of a powerful, adaptable bowling attack, surprised the Lions by starting with spin.

Semi-final 1: Highveld Lions v Delhi Daredevils

Neil McKenzie, who was dropped twice off Morne Morkel, ensured that the Lions had a defendable score as he spearheaded a late charge of 54 runs off the last five overs. Morris was then superb on a Kingsmead pitch that provided him with pace and bounce.

Semi-final 2: Titans v Sydney Sixers

The Sixers needed eight runs off the final over and Pat Cummins scrambled a leg-bye off the last delivery. Titans spinners Roelof van der Merwe and Eden Links had earlier bowled them back into the match after a roaring start by the Australians.

Cummins had earlier suffered terribly at the hands of David Wiese, who notched the fastest half-century of the tournament, off just 25 balls, while Henry Davids played an anchor role brilliantly.

Final: Highveld Lions v Sydney Sixers

The Highveld Lions were also-rans in a one-sided final, never recovering from a horror start after the Sixers had surprised them by opening the bowling with spinners. Openers Bodi and Petersen fell to offie McCullum and left-armer O’Keefe respectively, and with Hazlewood also chipping in with the key wickets of De Kock and McKenzie in the third over, the Lions had crashed to nine for four.

Symes, with the help of Tsolekile and Pretorius in the lower-order, gave them something to bowl at, but the Lions were also poor in the field, both Lumb, who also finished as the tournament’s leading run-scorer, and Haddin being dropped in the seventh and eighth overs.