Ken Borland

Ripped apart by Benetton Treviso on one of the most frustrating days in Bulls history, coach Jake White decried the “arrogance” of South African rugby that saw most pundits and fans expecting the local champions to just rock up in Europe and win the Rainbow Cup final.

The Bulls were meant to be triumphant forerunners of a wave of South African teams entering and dominating European competition via the new United Rugby Championship, but instead there will now be many questions overseas as to what our teams are going to add to the proud Celtic league.

Ponderous, one-dimensional and error-prone in comparison with an impressive Benetton side that produced some dazzling rugby, the Bulls were hammered 35-8.

“It would be a bit arrogant to think that we could just arrive in Italy and beat a club side and then fly home. Sometimes as a coach you just have to take it, tactically Benetton were very smart and there was no one area where we stamped our mark, we were a bit short in everything. But I’m a realist and that’s the first time many of this team felt pressure like that.

“Benetton have a lot of experienced Test players, they’ve played against England at Twickenham and France in Paris, and when you get them here at home, they can play. We looked inexperienced and we can blame that, the heat or the crowd, but at the end of the day we got it wrong. It was up to us to find a way, to do things differently,” White said.

While the Bulls have basically physically-dominated everyone back at home, it is clear that they play a more highbrow form of rugby in Europe and the South African teams are going to have to adapt very quickly. South Africa’s dominant team have just been handed a whipping by a team, impressive as they were on the day, no-one in Europe seriously thinks is better than big guns Leinster, Munster and Ulster, never mind the Champions Cup teams.

“It’s a completely different game up North and Benetton are a well-coached team who played really well. We did not enjoy it today being convincingly beaten, but we have got to find our feet. Hopefully this loss makes us so much better and I’m glad for the opportunity to grow as a team. Our youngsters have now seen that it’s a completely different game up here.

“To the other South African teams I would say ‘Don’t come here thinking it’s the same as what you’re used to’. It’s a totally different sort of defence and attack that you play against, homework and analysis is going to be so important. Back home we know the teams and players and we thought we have been clinical there, but we have never been punished for not kicking the ball out like we were here,” White admitted.

You will not find a more determined person than new Proteas limited-overs captain Temba Bavuma, whose history of overcoming challenges has shaped his character and makes him the ideal choice to inspire the national cricket team to rise above their own testing circumstances at the moment.

Watching Bavuma lead his troops, ultimately to a 2-1 series defeat against Pakistan in the ODI matches that were his first appointment, determination oozes from every inch of that 5’3 frame. Leadership comes naturally to the 30-year-old and even in the most trying times of that series, Bavuma remained calm and seemed in control.

Such composure is indicative of the many testing times Bavuma has had to come through to become captain of his country.

Like most South African youngsters, as soon as Bavuma could walk, he was outside in the sun playing sport. But his arenas were not verdant lawns or spacious parks as many of his Proteas team-mates would have enjoyed, but rather the run-down streets of Langa, the Cape Town township whose name means “sun” in Xhosa. It was named after the folk hero, Chief Langalibalele, one of the earliest prisoners on Robben Island because he defied the British rulers in Natal.

Bavuma’s family were passionate about cricket and, whether it was his uncles, grandmother or parents, he had plenty of people willing to throw him balls after he first picked up a bat. His real mettle was shown though when he graduated to joining the other youngsters playing street cricket.

The small boy soon caught the eye as he took on teenagers much older than him and who were disinclined to show him any mercy on the shabby, potholed roads of Langa in the late 1990s. Thus was born one of the best techniques in the country, as well as the courage and determination that are Bavuma’s hallmarks.

His parents then showed bravery of their own as they made enormous financial sacrifices so that Bavuma, whose talent was clear, could attend South African College Junior School (SACS) at the foot of Table Mountain.

The talent was polished by the excellent coaching at SACS and, by the time he went to the big city of Johannesburg and enrolled at St David’s Marist in Inanda, he was already considered a player of enough promise to warrant a scholarship.

He spent his holidays playing for Soweto Cricket Club, where he was guided by Geoff Toyana, who would go on to become the first Black African coach to win trophies at franchise level.

“Temba was always small and people would underestimate him. He had to prove himself time and time again for whatever team he played for, but he just has this enormous drive and will to do well. That’s his biggest characteristic, but he has lots of skill as well,” Toyana told Saturday Citizen.

Having played for Gauteng Schools in 2007 and 2008, making the SA Schools team in the latter year, he made his first-class debut for Gauteng, scoring 32 in the second innings, when he was still 18 years old and before he went to study at the University of Johannesburg.

From there his career has followed the well-travelled road to success – dominating at franchise level for the Highveld Lions, becoming a Protea, scoring that memorable Test century at Newlands and now, having been dropped not that long ago, he is captain.

But it is vital that the influence of both the Langa and Soweto cricket clubs are not forgotten in Bavuma’s inspirational tale. He himself requested, upon his appointment as captain, that in the midst of all the celebrations of the first Black African skipper of the Proteas being announced, that people do not forget the journey that brought him to that place.

Bavuma knows the significance of being a symbol and the importance of his legacy, but he also stresses the importance of looking after the same grassroots that he sprang from.

And he also wants to be known as a fine cricketer, who helped the national team win many games, and not just the first Black African captain. Beating the odds and convincing people of how good he is are things Bavuma has done before, and revitalising a team as captain is also something he has done before – with the Highveld Lions.

“Temba was the most successful franchise captain over the last three years, he has a proven record that no-one can dispute. He inherited a strong squad at the Lions but we hadn’t won anything. Under him we won five out of eight possible trophies which you can’t argue with. He created a winning culture very quickly at the Lions,” Nicky van den Bergh, his vie-captain at the franchise, said.

Playing all of their fixtures against the European sides on foreign shores is going to prejudice the hopes of the four South African teams in the Rainbow Cup, but Sharks coach Sean Everitt believes his team should still be competitive given their history of travelling well during SuperRugby.

The Rainbow Cup starts on April 24, with the South African franchises playing local derbies on the first three weekends. They then cross over to the Northern Hemisphere to play the existing Pro14 sides. While the fixtures for Rounds 4-6 have not yet been confirmed due to uncertainty over travel plans, those matches will all definitely be in Europe.

“We only have three domestic games and two of ours are not at Kings Park, but those are the cards we have been dealt and we just have to get on with it. But the Sharks have always travelled well and I expect the same. We will be there for two weeks before our first game so we can get used to conditions and I don’t think conditions will be as severe at the end of May as some people are expecting.

“We are looking forward to the challenge of playing against new teams and creating new memories and great experiences. But I think SuperRugby will be missed because it suited our style of play, we want to attack, it’s in our DNA, and it was a great competition. Our squad will stay the same as now, we’re only allowed to sign 45 players and I think we have to take 42 of them over there,” Everitt said at the weekend.

While the beloved free-flowing play of SuperRugby will be missed, Bulls coach Jake White said some of the less appealing features of the southern hemisphere competition once it expanded – such as the lopsided nature of the draw – will be repeated in the Rainbow Cup.

“We know our first three games are in South Africa so that’s our focus. But it’s not ideal to be playing all the European teams away, especially if conditions get helluva tough. But it’s going to be the same for all the South African sides. The Rainbow Cup is a very unique competition in that you have six games to get into the final and four of ours are away from home.

“But we’re lucky because some teams [the Sharks] have five away games. It’s a great opportunity to prepare for when we actually do play Pro16, but it’s a bit like SuperRugby if you didn’t have the favourable draw. Like if you had to play the Crusaders, Chiefs and Hurricanes away, you had a very much more difficult draw than the teams that played them in South Africa,” White said.

Dwaine Pretorius was obviously the star of the show as South Africa levelled the T20 series against Pakistan on Saturday with the best figures in the history of Proteas T20 cricket, but the all-rounder said the efforts of spin bowlers Tabraiz Shamsi and Jon-Jon Smuts in the middle overs of the innings were as worthy of reward as his incredible return of five for 17.

Pretorius broke the record for best T20 figures for South Africa, previously held by Ryan McLaren, who took five for 19 against the West Indies at North Sound. He bowled the second over of the innings, trapping Pakistan kingpin Babar Azam lbw with his second ball and then returned in the 14^th over of the innings to remove top-scorer Mohammad Rizwan for 51 and claiming three other wickets in the closing stages of the innings.

But before his second spell, wrist-spinner Shamsi bowled brilliantly in the middle overs to take one for 16 in his four overs, while Smuts conceded just 20 runs in his four overs of canny left-arm orthodox.

“That was next-level bowing by Shamo and Jon-Jon and they could easily have taken the wickets instead of me. That’s why I say it was a collective effort by the attack and the two spinners tightened the noose superbly. And Heinrich Klaasen captained the team really well, changing the bowlers around a lot so no-one could get settled on the batting side.

“So the spinners did superbly and the other seamers also executed the plan really well, and I just tried to stick to my plan. Sometimes in T20, the simpler the better and I just tried to keep my plans simple, although I have learnt, especially from bowing coach Charl Langeveldt, that it’s vital that the batsman doesn’t know which ball is coming, you also don’t want the batsman to settle into facing one thing,” Pretorius said after the six-wicket win.

Pretorius also praised the batsmen, especially Reeza Hendricks and Pite van Biljon, who both scored 42 and played the spinners aggressively, showing that even a daunting leg-spinner like Usman Qadir is only human as he faltered under pressure, conceding 43 runs in his four overs.

“The batsmen have actually played a lot of good cricket lately, but then it’s just been one or two overs that we lose really badly. As a batting unit, they’ve tried to focus on making sure that when you hit a bad patch, you don’t lose a cluster of wickets. They’re trying to keep their intensity high and they did that unbelievably well today. It’s about the big moments and we played those better tonight,” Pretorius said.