Ken Borland

Quinton de Kock may have left his team in the lurch by pulling out of their last game a couple of hours before the start, but the Proteas are all looking forward to having his services once again and will welcome him back with open arms, Rassie van der Dussen said on Thursday.

De Kock on Thursday issued a statement apologising for, and explaining, his reasons for refusing to take a knee in support of BLM ahead of South Africa’s T20 World Cup match against the West Indies earlier this week, and has now agreed to follow the CSA Board’s directive.

Fellow batsman Van der Dussen said all is forgiven and the team are really looking forward to having him back in the line-up for their game against Sri Lanka in Sharjah on Saturday.

“Quinny has been extremely remorseful and everyone understands and supports what he did, even though the timing was not great,” Van der Dussen said.

“It speaks volumes for the open environment the team and management has. He did not have to explain himself to us really, but we have come a long way in creating a safe space within the squad.

“He’s one of the best players in the world and of course we will welcome him back with open arms. We understood why he did what he did, and that’s the end of the story for us.

“I’m sure he will be selected on Saturday and it will be like nothing has happened as far as the team is concerned. Hopefully he himself will be in the right frame of mind to deliver a matchwinning performance like he has done so many times before. But it’s going to be great to have our brother and friend back on the field,” Van der Dussen, one of the strongest supporters of taking a knee amongst the White contingent in the team, said.

The statement De Kock issued earlier on Thursday said his actions were guided by the lack of engagement on the issue between the CSA Board and the squad, with the “take a knee” edict seemingly coming out of the blue for the players.

CSA Board chairman Lawson Naidoo and two other directors subsequently held a virtual meeting with the Proteas squad and management on Wednesday night, in which the reasons for their directive were clarified and the players’ concerns addressed.

A CSA statement on Thursday said De Kock and the rest of the team had now agreed to align themselves with the stance against racism as a moral issue and not a political statement.

Aiden Markram is not sure whether or not his game has grown from his couple of weeks playing in the IPL in the UAE, but he does believe he has a better idea of the flexibility required in T20 cricket, which he says is going to be crucial for the Proteas in the forthcoming World Cup.

Markram joined the Punjab Kings for the completion of the IPL following the withdrawal of English star Dawid Malan, and, batting in the middle-order, made starts in every innings as he ended with 146 runs in six innings, averaging 29.20 with a strike-rate of 122.68.

When South Africa begin their T20 World Cup campaign on October 23 against Australia in Abu Dhabi, the middle-order is where Markram is most likely to find a place in the team.

“The pressure is always a lot more at a World Cup, the environment is all about pressure and you need to perform under it. The IPL is also high-pressured,” Markram said on Monday, “but I’m not sure if my game has grown or not.

“But it’s obviously a good standard of cricket and I was learning on the job, mingling with some seriously good players, chatting to legends of T20 cricket, but also trying to work things out in the middle during games.

“The important thing is that you have plans for the conditions before matches, the type of cricket you want to play, but if conditions don’t allow it then you have to have something else to fall back on.

“Trusting that back-up plan is important and we have certainly upskilled ourselves lately. I don’t think this team brings too much baggage from previous World Cups and we haven’t had too many chats about 2019,” Markram said.

In terms of the conditions, the Zayed Cricket Stadium in Abu Dhabi is in the desert but within sight of the dhows in the Persian Gulf, and arguably the best place for batting in the United Arab Emirates. The Proteas have an attack to thrive in most conditions, but the question is whether South Africa does have the batting line-up to put up big enough scores.

“Conditions were not too bad in the IPL, but each ground was very different, which I didn’t expect because I thought the conditions would be pretty generic. But each ground poses a different set of challenges.

“The pitches are not the easiest to bat on, but once you get in, you can take the game away from the opposition. But it’s tough at first for the batsman coming in.

“Sharjah [where they play a qualifier and England] was probably the toughest batting pitch and Abu Dhabi the nicest to bat on.

“In general you’re looking to take pace off the ball, that’s the go-to, lots of changes in pace. And you have to bowl your spinners at the right time, getting that decision right is important,” Markram said.

Proteas opener Janneman Malan said his success in scoring a brilliant century against Sri Lanka at the weekend was thanks to a little help from his friends.

Malan’s brilliantly composed 121 off 135 balls led South Africa to a series-levelling 67-run win in Colombo, with the visitors posting a commanding 283 for six as their top-order dovetailed superbly, supporting him in successive partnerships of 43, 96, 38 and 86. Heinrich Klaasen then provided the explosive finish with his impressive 43 off 27 balls.

“The batting unit did really well, the coaches have set us realistic goals and expectations and we know that if we hit those then we have a good chance of winning. Reeza Hendricks’ 51 was very valuable, he scored at a run-a-ball, and Heinrich deserves credit as well. And just watching Aiden Markram and Rassie van der Dussen with the way they go about things, our batting is in a good space.

“Particularly against spin, we’ve seen the sweep is very effective, you can trust the bounce here and the straight bat tends to get beaten by the turn. And we also bowled really well. The bowlers didn’t do too badly in the first game, but maybe we underestimated how full we can go and the Sri Lankan batsmen like to go square,” Malan said after his man of the match performance.

The arrival of the 25-year-od in the ODI team has been nothing short of incredible. Malan has now scored three hundreds and two fifties n his eight ODI innings. He has scored a world-record 627 runs in his first eight innings, and that includes a first-ball duck on debut!

It is obvious that Malan’s uncomplicated style and unfazed approach has stood him in good stead.

“You never know how many chances you’re going to get and these are new conditions and you have to try and adapt and trust your skills. I try not to think about my batting too hard, I just break it down and take it game by game. I don’t really know what to make of my start, I’m just trying to score runs. I feel fortunate to have made such a good start to my career,” Malan said.

The third and decisive ODI will be played at the same Premadasa Stadium in Colombo on Tuesday.

Sharks coach Sean Everitt will be a restless sleeper this week as he considers the high penalty count recently against his team as they head for their last two round-robin fixtures of the Currie Cup.

The Sharks are currently second on the Currie Cup log, four points behind the Bulls, and they close their regular season by visiting the Lions on Saturday and then hosting Western Province on August 28.

But the Sharks had a double-figure penalty count against them in the first half of their match against the Bulls and were similarly ill-disciplined at the weekend against the Free State Cheetahs. Even though the Cheetahs had suffered a red card early in the second half, they stayed in the game thanks to the Sharks’ lack of focus and the KwaZulu-Natalians finished the 38-31 win with 13 men thanks to two yellow cards in the closing minutes.

“We’re very happy with the five points against the Cheetahs, but there are two work-ons we have to get right before playing the Lions in Johannesburg. The first is our set-pieces and the second is the number of penalties we are conceding. Those are due to individual errors and not system faults. Up to the Bulls game we had conceded the least penalties in the competition.

“After the last two games we are probably sitting top of that list now. We can’t defend for the majority of a game due to discipline issues, we need to take the pressure off ourselves if we are going to play free-flowing rugby. We need to rectify the number of penalties we’re conceding because we won’t have enough possession if we keep giving away penalties,’ Everitt said.

Nevertheless, the Sharks did score six tries against the Cheetahs, exciting wing Thaakir Abrahams scoring twice, and some of their attacking play would have been enough to make the coach purr with delight.

“Thaakir is always a threat with ball in hand, he poses big problems for the opposition. It was unfortunate that we had an injury in the warm-up and Marnus Potgieter [hamstring] was not able to take the field, but we were very fortunate to be able to bring in someone like Yaw Penxe, who has been with the Springboks.

“It was Le Roux Roets’ third game in a row so he’s getting that consistency now and he was massive in his ball-carries and setting the maul, while it was also good to see Cameron Wright back on the field and Boeta Chamberlain get a start. Dylan Richardson is blessed with an engine that can just go and go, he had a big impact defensively and with his ball-carries,” Everitt said.