Ken Borland

Thriston Lawrence was still shaking with excitement and the release of nervous tension half-an-hour after being told he was the winner of the weather-disrupted Joburg Open at Randpark Golf Club on Saturday, giving the 24-year-old South African a life-changing first international title.

Saturday was meant to be the final round of the co-sanctioned tournament with the DP World (formerly European) Tour, after the organisers decided to cut the event to 54 holes due to the terrible weather and the turmoil caused by travel restrictions overseas due to the announcement of a new Covid variant discovered in South Africa.

But the thundershowers returned just after midday and did not let-up in time to avoid the tournament being called off at 3pm. With the second round first needing to be completed on Saturday morning, none of the 69 golfers who made the cut were able to complete their third round.

The final placings were therefore decided based on the completed second-round scores and Lawrence, who had bogeyed the first hole and parred the second just before play stopped, was declared the winner by virtue of his four-shot lead over Zander Lombard after back-to-back 65s.

“I’m still shaking and it hasn’t really sunk in yet,” Lawrence said after receiving the crystal trophy. “It’s always been a goal of mine to win on the European Tour, but I didn’t see it coming so quickly and you never think it would come out like this.

“But the whole week has been strange weather and my mentality was just to finish the tournament. It wasn’t nice waiting today because you hear a lot of talk about what might or might not happen.

“But I’m just thankful for the way it turned out, it’s a life-changing moment and a lot of things are going to change in my schedule. It’s an unbelievable feeling. Being me a week ago to now is two worlds apart.

“You want to see yourself up there winning tournaments, but there have been a lot of knocks in the last year-and-a-half and it’s been tough,” Lawrence said.

The winner of one previous Sunshine Tour event – the 2019 Vodacom Origins Stellenbosch – was a trifle disappointed to not have his winning moment on the 18^th green, but even that did not stop his perpetual smile.

“I would have liked to get the win on the 18^th, have a winning putt, so it was not the perfect way to finish,” Lawrence said.

“But I played unbelievable golf over the last two days to take a four-shot lead into the weekend.

“Then the tournament was cut short amid a lot of confusion. The weather prediction was actually fine for today with a zero percent chance of lightning. But that only lasted 45 minutes.

“But I just stayed patient and I will take a lot of confidence from this win. And I don’t have to worry about invites anymore,” the Nelspruit golfer said.

Last summer it was England and Australia controversially pulling out of tours to South Africa due to their Covid fears and now the current international season could be ripped apart as well as the Netherlands tour and the vital Indian visit are hanging in the balance following reports that local scientists had detected a new variant of the virus in Gauteng and neighbouring countries.

The UK government started the panic when they put South Africa on the travel red list overnight, with the European Union expected to follow suit soon. This is despite scientists assuring that the new variant almost certainly does not come from South Africa, they have just been the first to identify it.

More than half-a-dozen of the Netherlands players are based in the UK, meaning they will have problems returning home after their three-match ODI series against the Proteas ends on Wednesday.

CSA issued a statement on Friday afternoon, while the Netherlands innings in the first ODI had been interrupted by rain at Centurion, saying it was highly unlikely that the tourists will be able to leave before the end of the weekend.

Given that they would have to quarantine for 10 days in a hotel if they do not return home as soon as possible, it is understandable that the Dutch team wanted to head off on Friday. But they will now probably only be able to leave on December 2, due to the lack of flights available in the hysteria. It is believed their federation is willing to cover the costs of quarantine.

That means the third ODI, scheduled for December 1, could still go ahead and the series can be completed, unless some other flight option is discovered by the KNCB.

While CSA and the Proteas will be disappointed to not complete the series, they – and especially their meagre coffers – would be devastated if the India tour set to start on December 17 does not go ahead.

India are set to fly to South Africa on December 8, but reports from India suggest the BCCI is waiting for their government to make a decision regarding travel to South Africa.

India A are currently in Bloemfontein playing the first of a three-match series of four-day games and CSA sources have told Saturday Citizen they have expressed no concern about staying in the country.

At the Joburg Open golf tournament at Randpark, co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour (formerly known as the European Tour), thunderstorms caused delays on Friday, but 20 European-based golfers, out of the field of 156, withdrew before the second round began, trying to scramble their way home before the travel deadline.

The intensity and skill on display in the new domestic structure makes the cricket very competitive, but it is the game-awareness of international players that marks them out when you move to a higher level, according to Western Province paceman Beuran Hendricks.

Hendricks was unfortunate to miss out on selection for the Proteas squad currently in the United Arab Emirates preparing for the T20 World Cup, but will instead spearhead Western Province’s efforts to try and win the CSA Provincial T20 Cup and bring some silverware to Newlands for the first time since 2014/15.

Western Province did not have things easy though qualifying for the quarterfinals from Pool A, and the Central Gauteng Lions fell by the wayside in the same group, which was topped by Division II side South-Western Districts.

“The start of the season has been brilliant and very competitive,” Hendricks told The Citizen. “It looks like a good product and it woke up a few teams. We nearly found out the hard way that the Division II teams are not mediocre.

“We were in difficult positions, the Lions were knocked out and the Titans had a big scare. We’ve seen talent come through, names you didn’t see at franchise level like Evan Jones and Clyde Fortuin.

“There’s no problem with the intensity and the guys have the skill, but where the shift to international level comes is in game-awareness. You have to make sure you have all your bases covered, not just one factor.

“The guys need to make sure they hone their skills, specifically the T20 ones like change-ups and yorkers at the death, and the awareness that the field-placings have to be spot-on,” Hendricks, who has played one Test, eight ODIs and 19 T20s for South Africa, said.

While Western Province were far from perfect in edging out the Lions by two runs and beating Northern Cape, it was pleasing that they came through under pressure, which speaks well of the environment in the squad under Faiek Davids.

“We’re quite relaxed and the guys are starting to enjoy themselves. It was quite a tough environment before because losing is never easy.

“But experienced guys like myself, Wayne Parnell and Aviwe Mgijima are trying to bring a sense of calm to the group. If the seniors take responsibility then the youngsters can just express themselves.

“Having three left-arm quicks in myself, Wayne and Nandre Burger is also good because it means it’s not easy for the opposing batsmen, who normally face so many right-armers.

“I’ve never seen three left-arm quicks play in the same team before, but we feed off each other and it’s definitely an asset to have 12 overs of left-arm seam,” Hendricks said.

There is no honour amongst thieves, so the saying goes, and it seems there is also no end to the greed and selfishness that characterises international cricket. Little wonder then that even The Big Three are starting to box each other, never mind their deplorable treatment of the rest of the cricketing world.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the associated quarantine protocols have given teams an easy excuse not to fulfill their commitments. England’s disgraceful exit from their tour of South Africa last summer was the first sign that The Big Three would not be beholden to anyone, not even the International Cricket Council, when it came to their board or players doing whatever they wanted.

Australia also refused to come to South Africa when the science actually showed their reasons were totally flawed, and India recently did the dirty on England by pulling out of the last Test of their series on the morning of the game due to a couple of positive Covid tests in their tour party.

Never mind that the Indians were probably to blame because they had been out of the bubble attending coach Ravi Shastri’s book launch and what not.

Poor old Pakistan have the added disadvantage of always having the ‘security risk’ tag hanging over their heads and both New Zealand and England have unilaterally pulled out of tours there. They say it’s because of security threats but they have never informed their hosts exactly what those threats were, and it is telling that Britain’s own High Commission in Islamabad supported their tour going ahead.

And let’s not forget that Pakistan toured England last year, staying in crappy hotel bubbles, at the height of Covid when their hosts were desperate for cricket.

Now even the Ashes are at risk because the English players don’t want strict quarantine rules to apply to them and their families in Australia.

It has all just led to a great diminishing of the image of international cricket. The pre-eminence of country-versus-country contests no longer seems to be in place and the ICC, the very custodians of international cricket, don’t seem overly invested in protecting their turf.

Of course, the Indian Premier League towers over all other cricket like the Drakensberg peaks tower over the surrounding midlands. No player ever pulls out of that tournament and every single recent change to the international schedule has benefited the IPL. If the Indian players had played that last Test against England, some of them would have missed the first game of the resumed tournament in the UAE due to quarantine arrangements. And many of the same players who were terrified of Covid in South Africa quite happily went to India when the pandemic was killing thousands of people every day.

The ICC should be like an Alsatian in being the guardians of international cricket, instead they are a lap dog for The Big Three. The consequences of this will be T20 tournaments continuing to ransack the calendar space and the players that should be available to international competition.

If all this double-crossing and use-and-abuse treatment of the poorer nations is allowed to continue, I can see franchise cricket overwhelming the international game. The ICC will limp along as a toothless body holding world cups every few years.

Lovers of T20 will be delighted as that format will dominate the calendar even more, but traditional cricket fans, especially lovers of the Test game, will be left angry and disinterested.

At the moment, those with the power in cricket all seem to just want to chow down at the banquet table without any consideration for those who produce or serve the feast. It is this greed and selfishness that is destroying the game.

Unless there is a sea-change in mindset and cricket gets some non-selfserving leadership in place, it will be a case of bad luck to the poorer nations as the rich get richer and the rest simply fade away.