Ken Borland

Convenor of selectors Andrew Hudson had to explain himself to the board of Cricket South Africa (CSA) in Johannesburg on Wednesday and left with a clearer understanding of his transformation duties, according to acting president Willie Basson.

Hudson and his fellow selectors have been criticised for their handling of wicketkeeper Thami Tsolekile, who was given a national contract last year and was assured he would be given an opportunity in the Test side during the current series against New Zealand.

Instead, Tsolekile has been dropped from the squad, having not been given an opportunity to play a single Test on tours of England and Australia, with key batsman AB de Villiers being entrusted with the gloves as the current successor to Mark Boucher.

“Andrew Hudson was invited to address us and he explained the selectors’ thinking in detail. After a long and intensive debate, he left more enlightened and informed about what is required from the selectors in terms of transformation. He has been sensitised to make sure the selectors deal with transformation in the most appropriate way in future,” Basson said at O.R. Tambo International Airport on Wednesday.

Basson confirmed that a mandatory number of Black African players for franchise and national teams is being considered by CSA.

“The target at the moment is four blacks for franchise and national teams, but a stipulation for Black Africans will be coming as part of the strategy of the Transformation Committee,” Basson said.

Basson acknowledged that more needed to be done at the higher levels of cricket in terms of transformation, but he said this had to be part of “a natural, bottom-upwards process”.

“Transformation at school and club level is far advanced – more than 60% of players are black at those levels. Transformation is still in progress at national level, and our efforts have been recognised by the minister of sport.

“But we’re now looking at three levels of transformation because they all have different requirements – national teams, franchises and schools and clubs. The pipeline needs to flow in a natural, bottom-upwards process,” Basson explained.

According to the acting president, Hudson defended the exclusion of Tsolekile because AB de Villiers was a much better batsman than the 32-year-old Highveld Lions wicketkeeper.

“Andrew explained to us the problems faced by the selectors in ensuring the team remains at the highest level and balancing that with the sensitivities of selection in ensuring there are necessary opportunities for everyone. He said it had been a case of AB de Villiers’ tremendous batting ability being more valuable than Tsolekile’s outstanding wicketkeeping and that, according to Andrew, Thami understands the position 100%.

“But the foundation has been laid for much better communication between the selectors, players and the board than in the past,” Basson said.

Basson also confirmed that the appointment of a Black African national selector was “in the pipeline” with nominations now being called for.

The defending champion Lions will be hoping it will be a case of history repeating itself in Johannesburg next weekend as they once again host Western Province in a Currie Cup semi-final.

Western Province produced a commanding display to dispatch the Free State Cheetahs 36-15 at Newlands on Saturday, giving them third place on the log and a semi-final against the second-placed Lions.

While the Capetonians will bring a squad full of top-class players now that the Springboks have returned to Currie Cup action, Lions fans will remember well that the same thing happened last year, with the Gautengers beating a star-studded Western Province team 29-20 at Ellis Park en route to hammering the Sharks in the final.

The Sharks are once again in contention, having finished at the top of the round-robin standings and they will host the Bulls in the other semi-final in Durban.

The Bulls, who began the final weekend at the bottom of the log and in serious danger of having to play promotion/relegation against the EP Kings, made the top four as Morne Steyn supervised a classy 50-29 victory over the Lions at Ellis Park.

Once the weight of avoiding the relegation playoffs was off their shoulders, the Bulls played with impressive freedom and they certainly have the ammunition now to avenge their 13-12 loss to the Sharks in a sodden Durban two weeks ago.

“We’ve had to fight our way out of a hole, and the last three games we’ve played really well, even when we lost to the Sharks. Conditions were very difficult that day, but we know the Sharks are a tough challenge; they’ve lost just once in Durban the whole year, but we’re just happy we’ve given ourselves the opportunity. A semi-final is a funny sort of game, it depends on who is more accurate on the day,” Bulls coach Pine Pienaar said.

The Lions, meanwhile, were not overly concerned by the big loss, having rested several key players and having the home semi-final already in the bag before the match against the Bulls even started.

“We started to go through the motions a bit, we lacked a bit of experience in the side this weekend and some of the guys started thinking about next week.

“Last year, we played against the Sharks the week before the semi-finals and lost 53-9, so we definitely didn’t have any momentum going into the knockout rounds, but we played our best rugby of the year after that. I felt that when we wanted to play tonight, we could do it and we’re definitely ready for the semi-finals,” Lions stand-in captain Butch James said.

With both Lions’ outside centres – Lionel Mapoe and Deon van Rensburg – suffering injuries at the weekend, Alwyn Hollenbach could well have to slide across into the number 13 jersey, opening up a place inside him for James, with Elton Jantjies coming back at flyhalf. That will set up a fascinating contest next weekend between James and another senior pro in Jean de Villiers in Western Province’s number 12 jersey.

De Villiers was one of the players to shine as the Capetonians, who began the match with an outside chance of being sucked into the relegation battle, produced a clinical display that left the Cheetahs with barely a gram of hope.

Western Province were allowed to run by the lethargic Cheetahs, a wonderful platform being laid by the forwards, led by returning Springbok lock Eben Etzebeth, and the Free Staters were out of the contest by the end of the first quarter.

In the veterinary world, the Cheetahs may have been put down, so lacklustre were they. Naka Drotske’s men could probably do with some defence clinics before their promotion/relegation meeting with the Kings.

The Sharks were another team to hit their straps at the weekend, giving Griquas the run-around in an overwhelming 42-3 victory in Durban. And coach John Plumtree still has some Springbok talent lying around that he can add to the side in the form of Tendai Mtawarira, Willem Alberts and Lwazi Mvovo.

The big question this year is once again whether it is better to have a settled side with continuity – i.e. the Lions – or will the introduction of the Springboks provide the necessary boost for the Bulls or Western Province to overcome the disadvantage of playing away from home?

The Sharks, having learnt the harsh lessons of last year when their seven Springboks returning from the World Cup failed to gel with the rest of the team and they were thumped 42-16 by the Lions in the final, are perhaps in the pound seats because they have experience of these problems and they will be playing both the semi-finals and the final, if they qualify, at King’s Park.

http://dailymaverick.co.za/article/2012-10-16-in-like-lions-but-will-they-go-out-like-lambs

The Lions were relegated from SuperRugby on Thursday by the South African Rugby Union (Saru) General Council following the Johannesburg-based team’s last-placed finish in this year’s competition.

A statement released by Saru on Thursday said “the top four teams in the South African Conference in 2012 (Stormers, Bulls, Sharks and Cheetahs) will join the Southern Kings in the 2013 tournament. The teams were confirmed after the general meeting accepted a proposal first tabled by the executive council in January. The proposal was that the franchise occupying the lowest log position of the five franchises at the end of 2012 would be relegated.”

Saru also confirmed, however, that the Kings, based in the Eastern Cape, would only be guaranteed one year in the competition that also includes New Zealand and Australian franchises, with the Lions playing a two-legged promotion/relegation match against the team that finishes last in the South African Conference in 2013.

None of the teams that will comprise the Southern Kings franchise – Eastern Province, South-Western Districts and Border – play in the domestic Currie Cup Premier Division, and neither have they managed to win the same tournament’s B Division in recent years.

But Saru president Oregan Hoskins defended the general council’s decision, saying that the sheer quantities of players produced in the Eastern Cape region meant they deserved to play at an elite level.

“All rugby provinces have been consistently in support of the need for an Eastern Cape team in the Super Rugby competition,” Hoskins said in the statement. “That decision was first taken in 2005 but their inclusion has twice been postponed.
“We made a commitment to the Kings to include them in 2013 and rugby has delivered on that commitment. The franchise represents more clubs than any other region – apart from the Stormers – and contains numerous leading rugby schools. It has been starved of top-class rugby competition for a decade-and-a-half and now it has the chance to show what it can do.”

Saru CEO Jurie Roux claimed that the bulk of South Africa’s SuperRugby players also supported the move.

“The provinces asked for a rugby solution and we believe that this was the fairest and most transparent method to respond to what is undoubtedly a less-than-ideal situation,” Roux said. “We also canvassed SuperRugby players before the start of the season, through the Players’ Association, and this was their preferred mechanism.

“The decision to apply a promotion and relegation system from 2013 is standard practice in sport. We operate promotion and relegation in all our Currie Cup competitions, with the bottom-placed team being relegated unless it wins a play-off. Our strategic goal is to have six strong franchises covering the whole of South Africa and this decision keeps all of them in play on an annual basis,” said Roux.

The Lions, who are already in financial difficulty after falling out with their equity partners last year, now face an uncertain future but have said the majority of their squad are on long-term contracts.

The general council, made up of South Africa’s 14 provinces spread between the two Currie Cup divisions, rejected a suggestion that the Kings delay their introduction into SuperRugby until 2016, when a new broadcast contract is in place, in return for a financial boost and the guarantee of more than one year’s participation.

The Saru statement made no mention of any financial support being given to the Lions, who are a 123-year-old union based in South Africa’s largest city but now face massive financial losses due to their exclusion from SuperRugby.

Lions president Kevin de Klerk said the Kings had been gifted SuperRugby participation without earning their place.

“We are extremely disappointed at this result. This is a very unfortunate decision which will result in a team taking part in a competition without needing to qualify on rugby merits,” De Klerk said.

The Lions won just three of their 16 SuperRugby matches this year, and have won just 12 of their last 71 games in the competition.

Cricket South Africa are excited by the prospect of experimenting with day/night Tests, acting chief executive Jacques Faul said in Johannesburg on Thursday.

Faul told a news conference that the instruction given to the Full Member Countries to begin investigations into the viability of day/night Tests had been the highlight of the International Cricket Council’s Chief Executives Committee meeting in Kuala Lumpur this week.

“We were encouraged to try and host night Tests. Obviously our board must first approve this and then we have to get the buy-in of our coach and players, and then of course the opposition still have to agree!

“But the idea really excites me and it was the highlight of the chief executives’ meeting for me,” Faul said.

“I understand that we’ll use a pink ball and, according to the New Zealand CEO [David White], Kookaburra have made a ball that is good enough for night Tests.”

While Faul was thrilled with the prospect of day/night Test cricket, he warned that it would be too risky to just rush into the new playing times.

“Maybe it’s the way forward for test cricket to evolve and it could be very beneficial for the longer forms of the game. But I’d be nervous just rushing into it at Test level, we’ll probably start with a first-class match,” he said.

“It’s early days, but I can see it happening in the near future. I’m just scared of the different conditions between day-time and night-time and the dew factor at certain of our grounds.”
Faul also confirmed that the Champions League T20 tournament would be coming back to South Africa this year, after Sundar Raman, a member of the CLT20’s technical committee, confirmed it on the social network Twitter.

“The protocol is for CLT20 to announce it first, but you can’t beat a tweet and it’s only fair to our public that I say ‘yes, we are hosting it’,” Faul said.

The acting CEO said the CLT20 board’s decision to go back to South Africa in October after they hosted the 2010 tournament was due to Indian venues not being available.

“India obviously have a lot of venues that could host the tournament, but the venues of the teams that qualified have problems.

“Mumbai will have a problem hosting a Pakistan team, for obvious reasons [the 2008 terrorist attacks], it’s monsoon time in Chennai and Kolkata has a religious festival, which leaves only Delhi,” Faul said.