Ken Borland

Of all the contributions Ali Bacher has made to South African cricket – captain of their first world-beating side, CEO of the United Cricket Board during the drive to Unity, running the successful hosting of the 2003 World Cup – the introduction of the then Bakers Mini-Cricket programme to underprivileged areas was arguably the one with the greatest impact on the future of the game in this country.

So one can understand Bacher feeling a little peeved when a Gauteng Cricket Board president mentioned to him almost 20 years after Bakers Mini-Cricket started that the programme was no longer having the desired outcomes.

“The first time we took cricket to the Black townships was in 1986 with the help of Bakers and within 10 years we had sent someone like Makhaya Ntini to Dale College. In 2003 I left Cricket South Africa and in 2005 the Gauteng Cricket Board president phoned me and said the mini-cricket programme is faltering.

“So I looked at the report and the problem was that any young kid with passion and talent would still not make it if they stayed in the township, because everything was against them there. I went to King Edward VII and when we left high school we were ready to play provincial cricket and Kagiso Rabada had five years of that as well at St Stithians.

“But in the townships there are no grass fields, pitches, nets or covers. There are 27 000 schools in South Africa and they are mostly Black with no facilities because they don’t have money for it. If talented players were identified there then you had to get them quickly to government or private schools that were traditionally good cricket schools,” Bacher explains.

KFC have now taken over the mini-cricket programme and their efforts deserve recognition because they are still a tremendous feeder system. But the approach when it comes to high school pupils has now changed, under the guidance of Bacher and with the support of Blue Label.

As the chief marketing officer of the mobile telecoms innovators, Rob Fleming, explains: “Transformation is absolutely critical and it needs constant love and attention. But what’s the best way of achieving it? I’ve seen multiple ideas and there’s no doubt we need to do a better job.

“Our real strength in South African cricket is our schools, but forty of them probably produce 80% of our players, so is that the right place to develop our cricket? If we take township kids to those schools then often they are not up to it academically and it affects their cricket and the whole scheme collapses.

“So it was Ali’s idea to go to old traditional cricket schools and try and reignite the game there, let’s create another forty top cricket schools. There’s no doubt the talent is there, that’s our conveyor belt and I love how coherently this programme can work with the rest of the system,” Fleming says.

What deters many schools from playing cricket is the time and expense it involves, which is where Blue Label is coming in to provide resources for Focus Schools, three of which (Uitsig, Akasia and Hendrik Verwoerd) were recently named in the Northerns region, joining schools in Johannesburg, Krugersdorp and Vereeniging that are already in the programme.

Cricket is competing heavily with other codes at these schools, and teachers and facilities are few, but by combining resources, their weakness has become a strength.

Our schools are where the rubber hits the tar in terms of capacity building and getting more and more talent into the pipeline.

“Many of these traditionally good cricket schools are now 99% Black so we are completing the circle and Rob is passionate about this as well. We’ve identified government schools that were former White schools and they still have good facilities but cricket was no longer being played. For example, Krugersdorp High School, hardly any cricket was being played; Highlands North used to provide most of the Balfour Park club, who were very good, but there was no longer any cricket there.

“But if we can get cricket back on its feet again in schools like that then I reckon we will see a plethora of good players coming through. Like Queen’s High School which is on the other side of the Jeppe Hill, it’s all Black and their cricket is so good. Their U15 side only lost one match last season and they beat Pretoria Boys High, they are well-dressed and their parents are all there. This will be so good for South African cricket,” Bacher says.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-kzn/20180609/282243781291243

Replacement Fred Zeilinga’s seven penalties put the Cell C Sharks’ noses in front in a photo-finish to their Absa Currie Cup match against the Xerox Golden Lions at King’s Park last night, as the home side scraped through 26-23 to keep their chances alive of hosting a semi-final.

The Lions had no answer to the Sharks’ determination to keep ball in hand, their superiority at the breakdown led by Jacques Botes, who was ‘celebrating’ the last home game of his illustrious career, and the often perplexing decisions of referee Pro Legoete.

The game was often scrappy as both sides gave away plenty of possession through handling errors, and the lineouts also seldom went to plan for the team throwing in.

The Lions enjoyed a 13-11 half-time lead as wing Ruan Combrinck read a blindside move by the Sharks perfectly and raced away for a 60-metre intercept try, with Marnitz Boshoff, the number 15 on his back, converting and adding two penalties.

A bullocking run by centre Andre Esterhuizen had given the Sharks their only try, but he was yellow-carded shortly afterwards for elbowing a tackler.

But the Sharks chipped away in the second half with Zeilinga adding penalties in the 46^th, 49^th, 54^th and 60^th minutes. An electrifying try by the Lions, centre Stokkies Hanekom dotting down after superb offloads by Franco Mostert, Jacques van Rooyen, Kwagga Smith and Ross Cronje, gave them a tiny glimmer of hope, but a good looping move by the Sharks created space on the outside and another penalty for Zeilinga, who took over the kicks from flyhalf Lionel Cronje towards the end of the first half.

The Lions were also hurt badly by replacement flank Derick Minnie being sent off to the sin-bin in the 68^th minute for killing the ball in the ruck, when it looked very much like a tackle situation.

Scorers

Sharks – Try: Andre Esterhuizen. Penalties: Fred Zeilinga (7).

Lions – Tries: Ruan Combrinck, Stokkies Hanekom. Conversions: Marnitz Boshoff (2). Penalties: Boshoff (3).

The Unlimited Titans and the bizhub Highveld Lions will once again be killing two birds with one stone when they start their pre-season competitive cricket with the Momentum eKasi Challenge, which the Southern Gautengers are hosting this year, at Dobsonville Oval on August 22.

The eKasi Challenge not only boosts grassroots cricket by bringing top franchise players to the townships, but also provides the team with valuable competitive action before the more serious competitions start.

The eKasi Challenge has become a sought-after trophy after just a single year – the Titans hosting and losing the inaugural match last August in Mamelodi – with Lions coach Geoffrey Toyana committing himself yesterday into playing his strongest available side, including five players who will have just returned from Australia on SA A duty.

“We’ll have everyone back and will play our strongest team as we’re looking to start afresh this season after being poor last year. Aaron Phangiso, Hardus Viljoen, Eddie Leie, Temba Bavuma and Kagiso Rabada will all be back and although I was planning to give them a break, they really want to be involved in the game.

“The eKasi Challenge means a lot for us, four or five of our players come from Soweto and it’s a great thing for them to go back and play there,” Toyana said yesterday at the Wanderers for the announcement of the venue.

Titans veteran Ethy Mbhalati said there is a similar sense of expectation in their squad.

“It’s very exciting, just remembering Mamelodi last year and the amount of people that came to watch, making a noise and supporting, that makes it a more serious game. I love spending time with the kids, it’s what I enjoy the most and there could be another Ethy Mbhalati in the eKasi.

“You just want to leave something for them, show them that there are people from the townships who are in top cricket.

“The guys are looking fit, we’ve been running and bowling and hitting balls for the last couple of months and we can’t wait for the season to start,” Mbhalati said.

It seems the cries of Black African youth in the townships for greater opportunities in cricket are being heard, thanks to Cricket South Africa, Momentum and the two Gauteng franchises joining forces in such an effective manner.

“I have to thank Momentum for coming up with this plan to bring cricket to eKasi. We would have had so many township cricketers playing at a high level if it had happened before. As Phangy [Aaron Phangiso] always says, ‘don’t forget your roots and where you come from’ – which is eKasi,” Mbhalati said.

The face of South African domestic cricket will change even more in the coming season with every franchise team required to field two Black African players and Mbhalati said the effect of this could be phenomenal.

“There’s always a starting point but we need to go from two to three to four. We’ve got enough talent, we don’t need to worry about that, it won’t be a problem. We can pick four now and they would do well, they would be there on merit.

“Maybe if this had happened in the past, we would have had more Makhaya Ntinis, Lonwabo Tsotsobes or Monde Zondekis by now. If you have three or four Black Africans playing then it brings even more hype to eKasi. If there’s only one Black African in a team, then people in the township wonder if they can make it, but if there are three then they think maybe they can be the fourth player,” Mbhalati said.

The positive effects of seeing role-models in action are obvious; and bringing those same heroes to the townships can only prove the success of the eKasi Challenge concept.

Chief executive Haroon Lorgat said on Thursday that hosting some of the 2014 Indian Premier League (IPL) would have been a “windfall” for Cricket South Africa, but the organisation had not catered for the tournament in their financial forecasts.

The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) announced on Wednesday that this year’s IPL would begin in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on April 16, before moving to India from May 1, with Bangladesh on standby should the elections in India not allow them to host it until later that month.

The announcement put to an end speculation that South Africa would host some of the tournament, having successfully staged the entire 2009 event.

“We weren’t surprised at all by the BCCI announcement, they want to play the tournament close to home. We were involved in discussions all along and we were informed of the decision before it went public. It made sense to have the first 16 games in the UAE, if they needed longer outside India then maybe we would have featured,” Lorgat said on Thursday.

“But we never had any plans for the IPL in our forecasts. It would have been a windfall, but it’s something we hadn’t bargained for. If it had come here, we would have embraced it, but equally we can deal with it not coming here. It’s their tournament and we respect their choice.”

With Lorgat and CSA having a well-publicised falling out with the BCCI last year and India, Australia and England staging a virtual coup to take control of the International Cricket Council (ICC), there have been fears that South African cricket would be sidelined.

But Lorgat revealed there has been a rush of activity in negotiations with other boards that would see more Test cricket being played here.

“We are very keen to play four-Test series against Australia and we’ve gone some way to agreeing to that, although it’s dependent on the calendar. If we can fit it in, then we will do that.

“And we are talking to England and have agreed in principle to play a five-Test series in 2015/16. So we’ve already achieved a lot working together since the original ICC proposal, which has already been changed considerably,” Lorgat said.

The CEO also denied reports from India that CSA had refused to stage only part of the IPL, wanting the whole tournament or nothing.

“To say we made demands like that is totally untrue and the amounts of money that we were reported to have wanted have also been exaggerated,” Lorgat said.