Ken Borland

When Imraan Khan said on October 1 last year, while they were still waiting for clarity on when the new season would begin, that “the culture and the environment is strong at the moment” in the Dolphins’ camp, there would have been many who just brushed the comments aside as typical pre-season talk from a coach.

But now that the Dolphins have pulled off an incredible triumph in the four-day competition – not just in the final but with their back-to-back away wins to host it – to add to their shared Momentum One-Day Cup title and their place in the T20 final, it is clear that Khan was dead right: something special has been brewing at Kingsmead.

How else did they manage to win the final outright with two days lost to rain, humbling the Titans, the dominant side in franchise history, by skittling them for a record low of 53?

“It’s been a fantastic performance, a bit unexpected, to be honest. But that’s been a feature of the team this season, they continuously fight. After the disappointment of the game being abandoned in Pretoria due to Covid, we fought back to share the One-Day Cup and then after losing the T20 final, we notched back-to-back away victories in the four-dayers, which was a special effort.

“We started two years ago as a technical team and we knew we had the tools, but we needed more consistency. We found a brand of cricket with our experienced bowlers being our spinners, and we stuck by it, everyone bought into it and we had a strong environment. The team does not rely on one or two individuals, it was a collective effort,” Khan told The Citizen on Tuesday.

The adoption of a new provincial-based system in domestic cricket spells the end of the Dolphins franchise just as they were becoming a dominant force, and there has already been one casualty with all-rounder Senuran Muthusamy, one of the stars of the final, throwing in his lot with newly-promoted North-West.

But Khan is confident Kingsmead will remain a fortress for the KZN Coastal side.

“We’ve managed to retain pretty much all our players, although Robbie Frylinck retiring is a big blow to our white-ball side and Senuran is unfortunately leaving us. We wanted to keep him, but we wish him well. But I am confident and comfortable with what we have, although we will still have to work hard on our execution and focus.

“We tend to back our spinners because conditions at Kingsmead have slowed down and we have a very young pace attack but it has a lot of potential. We’ve also had to do a lot of work on our batting so we can play our own conditions well. We have batted well because we spend a lot of time on the very specific skills needed here,” Khan said.

South African cricket risks losing one of its most promising coaches to New Zealand with the bombshell news that Titans mentor Rob Walter will be moving there before the start of the new season.

(from left) Albie Morkel, Ethy Mbhalati and Rowan Richards model the new Titans away kit.

The Unlimited Titans will bolster their reputation as the most innovative cricket franchise in the country in the new season when they become the first team to wear an away kit.

The Titans announced the new concept at SuperSport Park yesterday with the team set to sport an attractive purple and mauve kit in all their away limited-overs games next season. The franchise’s chief sponsors, The Unlimited, are behind the move with the aim being to publicise the Unlimited Child charity, an initiative to provide proper stimulation for the development of the more than six million pre-school children in South Africa.

“When they brought us the idea of building awareness for The Unlimited Child, an early childhood development initiative, we jumped at the opportunity. The away kit confirms that the Titans are not only one of the powerhouses on the South African domestic cricket scene, but one of the trendsetters too,” Titans CEO Jacques Faul said.

Pretoria is known as the Jacaranda City and the purple colour of the new kit will further connect with fans in Tshwane and the wider northern Gauteng region.

While helping the image of the Titans, the new away kit will also hopefully help create awareness around wider socio-economic issues like early childhood development, the CEO of The Unlimited, Steph Bester, said.

“The state of early childhood development in South Africa is shocking as it’s estimated that there are more than six million pre-school children in this country that receive little or no proper stimulation. Unless children between the ages of 0 and 6 years old are exposed to effective stimulation, their potential in life is seriously affected and they are destined to a life of poverty,” Bester said.

The formation of the Unlimited Child initiative has already given rise to more than 500 crèches, 1400 caregivers and over 48 000 children being enrolled in KwaZulu-Natal, the Western Cape and Gauteng. The Unlimited Child aims to replicate the programme in all nine provinces as the impact of this intervention on teaching and learning has proved to be immediate.

“We’re excited that the Titans have embraced the work of The Unlimited Child, and have joined us in driving awareness for the great work being done by the organisation,” said Bester. “This exposure will help us expand our footprint in the rest of the country, helping us realise our aim of getting up to 20 000 crèches nationally by 2020.”