Ken Borland

With the Lions springing a surprise by employing the battering ram services of Burger Odendaal at outside centre, forming a bulky midfield pairing with Dan Kriel, much attention was focused on the Sharks’ selection on Wednesday and who they will play in the No.12 jersey when they meet the Gauteng side in Durban on Friday night.

With captain Lukhanyo Am assured of his outside centre spot, Sharks coach Sean Everitt has gone for the stockier option at No.12, preferring Marius Louw to Jeremy Ward. Although Louw is six centimetres shorter than Ward at 1.81m, he weighs eight kilogrammes more at 94kg. Of course neither Louw nor Ward have the physical presence of the Sharks’ long-time inside centre Andre Esterhuizen, the 110kg Springbok who has joined English club Harlequins, but they both have much to add, with Ward warming the bench on Friday night.

“The competition between Marius and Jeremy is always close and we had lengthy selection discussions about it. We just felt that when Marius came on against the Bulls on SuperFan Saturday he played particularly well and brought a lot of energy. But they are both very good players and leaders, and Marius just pipped Jeremy this week.

“Playing Odendaal at 13 means the Lions will have a big centre combination with Kriel at 12. We’re expecting something different from them, they may have moved away from their DNA a bit, away from continuity and ball-in-hand rugby a bit,” Everitt said.

Facing off against Odendaal as his direct opponent and not seeing him at inside centre is also going to be different for Am, who locked horns with the new Lions signing many times while he was up the road at the Bulls.

“I’ve never gone head-to-head with Burger but I have huge respect for him having played against him several times. He will bring experience and leadership to the Lions, and probably the same game he had at the Bulls – he takes on defenders and he carries the ball pretty hard. That’s what I expect from him, the Lions have quite a big centre pairing now and we expect a physical battle,” Am said.

Springbok Sevens star Werner Kok, making his official Sharks debut, has been paired with veteran JP Pietersen as the wings, with Madosh Tambwe expected to be fit for their next Super Rugby Unlocked game, away at the Bulls after next week’s bye, and Yaw Penje, signed on a short-term contract, still assimilating into the squad.

Ox Nche forms a powerful propping partnership with World Cup winner Thomas du Toit, and Everitt said he is really happy with the improvement shown in the Sharks’ scrummaging since the start of the year.

“Their great form really started early on in Super Rugby. We had a few issues at the start of the year in our scrum and there were plenty of critics. But since then the scrum has gone from strength to strength. I thought they stood up well against the Bulls two weeks ago and Ox and Thomas carried that through to last weekend’s Green and Gold game. Ox getting one over Ruan Dreyer of the Lions last weekend will add some spice to Friday night and it will be an interesting battle,” Everitt said.

Sharks team: Manie Libbok, JP Pietersen, Lukhanyo Am, Marius Louw, Werner Kok, Curwin Bosch, Sanele Nohamba, Sikumbuzo Notshe, Phendulani Buthelezi, James Venter, Hyron Andrews, Ruben van Heerden, Thomas du Toit, Dylan Richardson, Ox Nche. Replacements – Dan Jooste, Mzamo Majola, John-Hubert Meyer, JJ van der Mescht, Mpilo Gumede, Grant Williams, Jeremy Ward, Thaakir Abrahams.

The Proteas want to take young, courageous cricketers without the old baggage to the next World Cup, and much of the coming season will be dedicated to finding those players, according to the captain Faf du Plessis.

The 2018/19 season was officially launched in Centurion on Tuesday and, despite the attraction of the Test series against Pakistan, the focus of the summer will be on what happens at the end of the season – the World Cup in England.

“Our focus is not on the short-term, everything is looking ahead to the World Cup, so sometimes the team that is selected might not be the best available, but that’s how we get guys more experience ahead of our goal, the World Cup. We want to give a few guys more time and we will speed up that process now, even though our results have not been as good as we would have wanted.

“But it means we can see some young, courageous cricketers, and I believe that’s how we can win the World Cup, by losing the baggage. We don’t want the players to be limited and so mentally challenged; the mental side of things is the only hurdle we have left to conquer because we have the skills and we’ve done the planning, we’ve just lacked in mentality,” Du Plessis said on Tuesday.

The road to the World Cup includes ODIs against Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Sri Lanka at home, as well as a short tour to Australia, and Du Plessis said the matches will be used mostly to fine-tune the side mentally as well as sift through the last few pieces of the selection puzzle.

“We want to try and free up the guys mentally, so there’s no fear of failure, the players must get out there and be able to do the job, and we must equip them for that time. That extra 10-20% mentally is where we have not been as good as we could be. I’ve been to two World Cups and we’ve had different approaches in the lead-up and also mentally.

“So I’ve seen the benefits of what has worked and we will try and take from that, but I’ve also seen the bad. A few guys have shown that they are made for international cricket, they’re ready, and a few guys need more time. So we’ll probably only have a more settled team when we play Pakistan and Sri Lanka next year, then we can look more at the style of play we want for the 15-man squad,” Du Plessis said.

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The equity of the Multiply Titans just keeps rising, with another rich haul of trophies gathered at the Cricket South Africa Awards this year, and much of the credit for that success must go to the leadership and equanimity of Northerns Cricket Union president John Wright.

Apart from achieving success on the playing field – a box the Titans certainly ticked by winning two of the three franchise trophies – the union also places a high premium on CSA’s scorecard system that ranks administration, and winning the Affiliate of the Year title for four successive years is a tremendous feather in their cap.

“For the Northerns Cricket Union to win CSA’s incentive scorecard for four years running is definitely a highlight from an admin perspective, as is every competition we have won on the field. We implemented a turnaround strategy for the stadium, which we remodelled with cosmetic upgrades and making it fit for different uses. Jacques Faul [CEO] has done really well to turn SuperSport Park into a multi-use venue.

“The function of our board is good and there has been very good support from council. Before 2013, there were many meetings postponed because we didn’t have a quorum, but it hasn’t happened once since then. Our club cricket continues to do well too and a good university is critical for any province. The involvement and success of Tuks is one of the reasons we do well, they are strong, with good facilities, coaching and infrastructure,” Wright said.

2013 was the year that Wright began his tenure as NCU president and initially he was meant to serve a maximum of two two-year terms. But then CSA decided in 2015 that presidents can serve two three-year terms and the Northerns council decided recently that the renowned international hockey umpire is eligible for another term when elections are held in August.

If Wright is re-elected, which would seem to be the obvious move, then the 47-year-old will be stressing that there can be no relaxing as the NCU and the Titans have to keep striving for greater heights.

“This is a fantastic union and franchise, steeped in a lot of history, but we mustn’t forget that we weren’t always one of the big dogs. Now we have to maintain our success and keep looking at opportunities to improve. We have achieved a lot, but to rest on our laurels would be a huge mistake.

“The well-being of our clubs is critical and I would like to empower them and provide them with even more opportunities. On the field, obviously the Titans had the chance to do the treble but only ended up with the double. But it’s a very cut-throat, tight competition. But I do believe that we have what it takes to win all three tournaments, we just have to be consistent all the way through,” Wright said.

The senior sports organiser at the Tshwane University of Technology stated that the Northerns provincial team and transformation in schools would be areas of focus for him if he serves another term.

“We’ve ridden the wave for a long time, we’ve been one of the most successful franchises in South African cricket history by winning two trophies for three years in a row, but this season coming will be a good test of where the franchise really is because we will be without a lot of Proteas players. And it’s great that we have provided a number of new players for South Africa recently.

“I would also like to see our Northerns provincial team be more competitive and more consistent, that needs a bit of rebuilding. I hope those coaches are allowed time to come through and are not just hung out to dry after one season. We need to give them an opportunity to establish themselves.

“There’s also a lot of work to do in the transformation of schools. We have not been as effective as we should have been at that level – there are some spectacular results but then some schools are dragging their heels. And I would like to see people have an even bigger attachment to SuperSport Park, make it feel even more familiar for our fans,” Wright said.

The chairman of the Titans franchise is certainly now a familiar face in South African cricket and, having achieved so much already, he still has plenty to give.

New Proteas batting coach Dale Benkenstein’s last involvement with the national cricket set-up was 15 years ago, in October 2002, when he played his 23^rd and final ODI for South Africa against Bangladesh in Benoni, perhaps a suitably low-key finale to an international playing career that promised much but was never brought to full bloom.

Those were the days when South African cricket was still recovering from the demise and tragic death just four months previously of Hansie Cronje, the much-admired captain who was then exposed as a match-fixer.

Those were also the days when the World Cup curse was really starting to engulf the South African team – Benkenstein was watching from the changeroom as a non-playing squad member when they threw away their 1999 semifinal against Australia in farcical circumstances and was a spectator at Kingsmead in 2003 when the shambles over their understanding of the Duckworth/Lewis calculations knocked them out of the tournament.

Benkenstein, having marked himself out as a natural leader with his captaincy of the SA U19 side, was given the reins of a star-studded Natal team at the age of just 22 and did such a great job that he quickly became the heir apparent to Cronje in the national team.

But those were also the days when there appeared to be a tendency for the existing captain to suppress the development of his closest rival: Under Cronje’s watch, Benkenstein was never really given a fair chance to establish himself in the national team. He would play one or two games and then be left out, or would be shifted up and down the batting order, in a manner that seemed to suggest life was being made as tough as possible for him.

Neil McKenzie, similarly, seemed to struggle to hold down a place while Shaun Pollock was skipper and it was Graeme Smith who finally ended the trend as he actively pushed for McKenzie’s return to the national team.

Benkenstein did have his shortcomings as an international batsman – but almost all batsmen at that level have weaknesses which they work hard to avoid being exposed. But those very flaws help make the 43-year-old an excellent batting coach because he understands the dynamics of technique and the massive importance of the mental side of batting, having wrestled with those issues himself.

The best coaches are often not the former players with the best records, simply because they have empathy for the struggling cricketer, and Graham Ford, who played such a key role in the development of players such as Benkenstein, Pollock, Jonty Rhodes and Lance Klusener at Natal, is the prime example of that.

Benkenstein and the new Proteas head coach, Ottis Gibson, are former team-mates at Durham, the English county that was only elevated into top-level cricket in 1992, and it was the arrival of the Natal captain that ended years of disappointment and elevated them into a force in the UK. So the West Indian is well aware of his new batting coach’s inspirational qualities, and he and Benkenstein added 315 for the seventh wicket in 2006 to avoid relegation. Gibson played a major role with the ball in the trophies won thereafter.

Given that South Africa’s World Cup struggles are symptomatic of muddled mental skills at key times, the arrival of one of the clearest thinkers on the game can only be a positive.

But one hopes that the skills of McKenzie, another ex-Protea who brings immense value to the changeroom, will not be lost to South African cricket now that Benkenstein has taken his place in the national set-up.

The appointment of Malibongwe Maketa as the assistant coach is also pleasing as the development of Black African coaches is vital if the transformation of South African cricket is to progress, but one obviously feels for Geoff Toyana, the Highveld Lions coach who seemed certain to be involved with the national team in some capacity.

The acquisition of a few more domestic trophies will certainly keep Toyana’s name in the conversation to succeed Gibson, however.

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