Ken Borland

When one leaves the job of national cricket coach “to pursue other opportunities in line with his future career and personal objectives”, then the IPL would be a most suitable next step and Proteas coach Mark Boucher was duly confirmed as the Mumbai Indians new head coach on Friday.

Boucher announced earlier this week that he would step down as the Proteas coach after the T20 World Cup next month in Australia, and the “pursue other opportunities” reason was attributed to Cricket South Africa CEO Pholetsi Moseki in their statement.

“It’s a pleasure to welcome Mark Boucher to Mumbai Indians. With his proven expertise on the field and off it as a coach, guiding his team to numerous victories, Mark will add immense value to MI and take forward its legacy,” Akash M. Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Jio Infocomm, the owners of the franchise, said.

Boucher has overseen a steady growth in the Proteas T20 team, such that they are now ranked third in the world and are considered dark horses for the World Cup crown in Australia.

For Boucher, taking the coaching reins at a franchise as powerful as Mumbai Indians, the most successful IPL team in history with five titles since 2013, can almost be considered a step-up, especially in terms of salary.

But the last couple of years have been rough for Mumbai and there will be pressure for Boucher to turn around their fortunes as quickly as possible, because they missed the playoffs in 2021 and finished last this year.

“It is an honour and privilege for me to be appointed as head coach of Mumbai Indians,” Boucher said. “Their history and achievements as a franchise clearly put them up there as one of the most successful franchises in all of world sport.

“I look forward to the challenge and respect the need for results. It’s a strong unit with great leadership and players, and I look forward to adding value to this dynamic unit.”

Reports had suggested Boucher was being lined up for the MI Cape Town coaching gig in the inaugural SA20 early next year, but Australian Simon Katich has been appointed to head that sub-franchise, with Hashim Amla as the batting coach.

Boucher replaces Mahela Jayawardena as IPL coach, with the Sri Lankan great now looking after all three sub-franchises in the IPL, SA20 and Emirates T20 for Reliance as global head of performance.

With teams like the Chennai Super Kings and the owners of the Mumbai Indians investing in South Africa’s new T20 league, sources say Cricket South Africa and SuperSport could not turn down the millions of dollars they stand to make and have awarded all six franchises to IPL bidders with deep pockets and plenty of experience in operating professional sport franchises.

CSA confirmed that the owners of the six franchises in the new league to start next January would be Mumbai Indians owners Reliance Industries (based at Newlands); RPSG Sports Private Limited, the owners of Lucknow Super Giants (Kingsmead); Sun TV Network Limited, the owners of Hyderabad Sunrisers (St George’s Park); Chennai Super Kings (Wanderers); Royals Sports Group, of Rajasthan (Boland Park) and JSW Sports, the co-owners of Delhi Capitals (SuperSport Park).

And, in keeping with the Indian Premier League being the richest cricket tournament in the world, those six investors’ bids reportedly far outstripped any other of the 20-odd Expressions of Interest CSA received. Sources say the average bid for a franchise amounted to $25 million, and nobody else could compete with those numbers.

The team owners will pay 10% of that figure per year, for 10 years. CSA get roughly half of that annual fee, amounting to $1.25 million per team, per year; and that amounts to $7.5 million per year, which, by today’s exchange rate, is a whopping R128 million per annum.

It is not exaggerating to say domestic cricket will die without that extra income allowing CSA to subsidise their vital pipeline.

Over the 10-year lifespan of these franchise deals, that will be an injection of more than a billion rand into South African cricket.

One South African cricket insider described it as “crazy money” and, with an appealing time zone in terms of the Indian market, the new T20 league should become an international brand in its own right.

It is believed the Chennai Super Kings put in an enormous $40 million bid for the Wanderers franchise, which is probably 10 times more than the leading local bidders could afford.

The compulsory local development initiatives that all bidders had to have as part of their submissions is also an appealing prospect for the domestic game. It is hoped that these IPL owners will allow the provincial structures based at the six venues to play an active role in the league, rather than just flying in and taking over the premises for a couple of months and then jetting off again.

With the Indian teams having made such a massive investment, could the South African league be the first to benefit from an allowance for current Indian players to compete in the tournament in the years to come?

The Mumbai Indians won the Indian Premier League three times between 2017 and 2020 but missed out last year, and decided over the weekend that 18-year-old Dewald Brevis might be the missing ingredient they need to return to the podium in the world’s richest cricket tournament.

And Mumbai were willing to pay Brevis about R6 million at the IPL Auction this weekend to play for them, even though he has played just one senior level T20 game, scoring 23 off 25 balls for the Northerns Titans against the Free State Knights at the weekend. But Brevis has just come off an outstanding Junior World Cup, where he scored the most runs in the history of the event and was named player of the tournament despite South Africa’s early exit.

The star quality of other South Africans was confirmed as Kagiso Rabada was bought by the Punjab Kings for around R18.7 million, veteran Faf du Plessis goes to Bangalore Royal Challengers for R14.2 million, and Quinton de Kock was picked up by the new Lucknow Super Giants franchise for R13.7 million. Anrich Nortje is South Africa’s other big IPL earner, having been retained by Delhi Capitals for R13.15 million.

David Miller was bought by the Gujarat Titans, another new franchise, for R6 million, but needs to mend his reputation as a finisher in the IPL because he was only auctioned off in the closing hours on Sunday, having gone unsold on the first day.

Lungi Ngidi, who has shown lately he is on the mend from all his injury problems, was also only picked up late on Sunday, going to Delhi Capitals for R1 million.

New sensation Marco Jansen picked up a healthy R8.5 million price tag from Hyderabad Sunrisers, while Aiden Markram’s growing reputation as a T20 player saw him fetch R5.3 million from the same team.

There was joy for Rassie van der Dussen (Rajasthan Royals, R2 million) and Dwaine Pretorius (Chennai Super Kings, R1 million) as they both gained their first IPL contracts.

But the IPL’s baleful attitude towards foreign spinners was again highlighted by the fact Tabraiz Shamsi, one of the world’s best T20 bowlers, failed to secure a buyer.

The mysterious skills of spinner Sunil Narine decided the outcome as the Kolkata Knight Riders snatched an extraordinary 32-run victory over the Mumbai Indians in their Indian Premier League match at the Wankhede Stadium on Wednesday.

 – http://www.supersport.com/cricket/article.aspx?id=1384311

The victory means the Knight Riders join the Delhi Daredevils as the only two teams that are through to the playoffs and, defending just 141, it was thanks to the brilliant efforts of their bowlers in making the ball talk on a helpful surface.

Narine led the way with four for 15 in 3.1 overs and the West Indian is so mysterious that, in a bygone age, his dominance would have been churlishly attributed to ball-tampering, throwing or some other dark art.

With a required run-rate of just 7.05 runs per over, Mumbai were obvious favourites as the experienced duo of Sachin Tendulkar and Herschelle Gibbs strode out to begin the run-chase.

But the tight bowling of seamer Lakshmipathy Balaji up front and the spin trio of Shakib al-Hasan, Narine and Iqbal Abdulla, the latter snaring the wicket of Gibbs, trapped lbw for 13, saw the required rate jump to over eight an over after just a handful of overs.

Tendulkar was happy to just accumulate ones and twos until the ninth over, when he punished Jacques Kallis for a six and a four.

But the glory of dismissing and thoroughly baffling Tendulkar went to Narine as he bowled him for 27 at the end of the 11th over, a fizzing off-break seemingly taking a bit of hand, bat and thigh on its way on to the stumps.

From then on it was like David’s battle against Goliath – except the underdogs didn’t get the divine intervention they needed – as Mumbai required 81 runs off the last nine overs.

Dinesh Karthik scored 21 off 26 balls before his pull shot off Balaji was perfectly placed for Yusuf Pathan to take the catch on the fine leg boundary.

Ambati Rayudu hit left-arm spinner Abdulla out of the park in the 14th over but was then stumped by Brendon McCullum for 11 when he tried to repeat the stroke against the other left-arm spinner in the Kolkata line-up, Bangladesh star Shakib al-Hasan.

Kallis then went to town in the 17th over, proving his all-round worth after a first-ball duck with the bat as he deceived Kieron Pollard (8) with a slower bouncer and then trapped Dwayne Smith lbw with the next delivery for a Caribbean double.

Any semblance of hope then disappeared for Mumbai as Harbhajan Singh, not knowing if Narine’s delivery was spinning in or turning away from him, skied a big hit to long-on.

Narine then spun out Rohit Sharma for 12, McCullum bounding out from behind the stumps to take the catch, and the 23-year-old then wrapped up the win by dismissing Rudra Pratap Singh for three with the first ball of the 20th over, earning himself the Purple Cap in the process.

The Kolkata bowlers would obviously like to put the Mumbai pitch in a box and carry it around India with them because they all thrived.

Apart from Narine, Balaji ended with terrific figures of two for 11 in four overs, Shakib produced a fine performance with one for 25, Abdulla showed his talent with one for 23 and Kallis did the wicket-taking job required of him with two for 32.

The Kolkata Knight Riders had earlier left their supporters cursing what seemed to be a mediocre batting performance as they struggled to 140 for seven.

Many tomes have been written about Kallis, but he was one of the Knight Riders batsmen to fail as he was bowled through the gate by Rudra for a first-ball duck.

In the South African’s defence, however, he errs so seldom and it was a cracking delivery from the left-arm seamer that nipped back off the seam, against the natural angle across the right-hander.

It was a disastrous start for Kolkata after Mumbai captain Harbhajan seemingly made the right decision at the toss and sent them in, McCullum having suffered an awful lbw decision from Subroto Das off the previous delivery from Rudra.

McCullum was well down the pitch, the ball pitched outside leg stump and probably would have gone over or outside off stump, but Subroto sent him on his way for a single.

Captain Gautam Gambhir (27) and Manoj Tiwary (41) brought some respite with a third-wicket stand of 38 in seven overs, but the accurate Mumbai seamers allowed them little leeway.

The Knight Riders had limped to 54 for three at the halfway mark, which finally brought out the strokemaker in Tiwary as he hit two fours and two sixes before falling to the superb Munaf Patel in the 15th over.

The lower-order did come to the party, with Shakib (13), Yusuf Pathan (21*) and Rajat Bhatia (12) all upping the run-rate, while Narine hit two fours off the first four balls he faced at the death.

The Mumbai bowlers held sway, however, with Munaf the best of the bunch with the brilliant figures of one for 17 in four overs.

Rudra finished with two for 33, while Lasith Malinga was unusually in the background as he took one for 32. The medium-pace of the West Indian duo of Pollard (3-0-20-1) and Smith (2-0-8-1) was also impressive on the helpful Wankhede pitch.