Ken Borland

Hot on the heels of the new Cricket South Africa board protesting that they inherited the mess that was the Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings, there is a second legacy of the old, disgraced board that may also cause them strife in the coming months.

I do have some sympathy for chairman Lawson Naidoo and his fellow directors when they ask with some frustration, in the wake of CSA’s embarrassing arbitration loss to Graeme Smith, “What were we supposed to do?”

The fact that SJN ombudsman Dumisa Ntsebeza chose only to make “tentative findings” on “untested evidence”, but was quite happy to make public claims of racism (surely the most damaging allegation against a White South African), meant CSA were almost damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

If they failed to further investigate the SJN allegations, then they would have been accused of ignoring the systemic racism that no doubt was part of our cricket in previous decades. But by acting on the claims against Smith, they left themselves open to criticisms of a witch-hunt and slander because the evidence was so flimsy.

Naidoo and fellow director Steven Budlender, the noted advocate, defended themselves in a Daily Maverick article this week, but what they did not mention was the way CSA’s legal representatives handled themselves in the arbitration, being criticised by the officials for “changing their tack” in the middle of the hearings and “trying to trap Smith”.

Little wonder costs were awarded against CSA.

Because the SJN was not properly set up to hear and test such inflammatory evidence in a better-controlled legal environment, the previous board certainly left Naidoo and Co with an explosive booby-trap.

The other decision of the previous board that is now causing some unhappiness in cricket circles is the automatic promotion/relegation that will apply at the end of next summer and see one of the top eight teams go down to the second division.

At the moment, one of Northern Cape, KZN Inland or South-Western Districts look set to be promoted. The Free State Knights, based in Bloemfontein, are bottom of the Division One relegation standings, with North-West (Potchefstroom) and the KZN Dolphins (Durban) tied second-from-bottom. Even teams like Western Province (Cape Town) and the Eastern Province Warriors (PE) have anxious times ahead as they are only lead the Knights by 10 points.

Do CSA really want one of those major centres to miss out as the likes of Kimberley, Pietermaritzburg or Oudtshoorn have a Division One team instead?

The problem with automatic promotion/relegation is that it is unlikely, barring a mass defection of players, that the team coming up will be better than the side going down, given the quality of cricket played in Division II.

There are many good reasons to ensure teams in the lower division can work their way up into the premier section, but the majority of fans do not want to see the Dolphins, Western Province or the Central Gauteng Lions playing in the second league. Imagine iconic stadiums like Newlands, the Wanderers or Kingsmead not hosting the best domestic players?

The only reason teams like KZN or the Lions, who would have been involved in the relegation battle before their surprise victory in the One-Day Cup right at the end of the season, would find themselves in danger of going down is because they provide most of the Proteas team.

There are many who feel automatic promotion/relegation is there to ensure the smaller unions, whose votes are often like the tail wagging the dog, share a place at the top table for at least one season before themselves being demoted.

I know CSA have a lot on their plate, but tweaking this system to ensure the Division II winners are only promoted if they beat the bottom side in Division I, is hopefully going to become a priority.

If you are used to some of the Bulls sides of old, you would not believe it but current coach Jake White has prioritised a counter-attacking fullback, which is why he has shifted wing Canan Moodie to No.15, in place of the injured Kurt-Lee Arendse, for their United Rugby Championship clash with Glasgow Warriors at Loftus Versfeld on Friday night.

Arendse, who has shown marvellous ball skills and the ability to regularly ghost past defenders on his way to seven tries in this season’s tournament, fractured his thumb last weekend against Benetton Treviso. White described it on Thursday as a relatively minor injury similar to the one that kept Stormers star Warrick Gelant out for a few weeks.

“Kurt-Lee got injured in the 60^th minute and then after the game he felt his hand was a bit sore after the adrenalin wore off. He came to training on Monday and the hand was a bit bruised,” White explained.

“The scans showed a little hairline fracture at the bottom of the thumb and he had a screw put in which should help the bone heal quicker, hopefully it gets him back on the field sooner.

“It’s an injury like Warrick had, with the associated ligament damage, which could take four-to-six weeks, but hopefully sooner because Kurt-Lee is very important to us.

“The way we attack requires a different kind of fullback to say a David Kriel, Kurt-Lee’s type of fullback has worked well for us. And the competition as a whole has shown that a fullback that can attack from the back works – for example Warrick,” White said.

The well-travelled World Cup winning coach likes the idea of backs who can play in several different positions, and the versatile James Verity-Amm comes in on the right wing to replace Moodie, while former Springbok wing Cornal Hendricks will continue his midfield partnership with Lionel Mapoe, with specialist inside centre Harold Vorster on the bench upon his return from a positive Covid test.

“Canan has run a few times at fullback in training and James can play both fullback and wing. It’s a good opportunity to see how Canan goes at fullback with mature and older wings around him in James and Madosh Tambwe,” White said.

“In the 2003 World Cup, Australia played Latham, Roff, Rogers, Larkham and Burke, who were all fullbacks. If you’re good enough, you should be able to play anywhere.

“It’s just about balancing the combinations, and the number on your back is not important in multi-phase attack. Jonah Lomu played eighthman at school and was one of the greatest wings ever.

“Tiaan Strauss and Morne du Plessis both played fullback and centre before moving into the pack; Danie Craven played in a handful of positions for South Africa. So it’s nothing new.

“It’s the way the game is going now, the more versatile you are the better. To use a chess analogy, having more Queens would be better that having just Pawns that can only play in certain ways,” White said.

Bulls team:Canan Moodie, James Verity-Amm, Lionel Mapoe, Cornal Hendricks, Madosh Tambwe, Morne Steyn, Zak Burger; Elrigh Louw, Arno Botha, Marcell Coetzee (CAPT), Ruan Nortje, Walt Steenkamp, Mornay Smith, Johan Grobbelaar, Gerhard Steenekamp. IMPACT-Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Simphiwe Matanzima, Dylan Smith, Janko Swanepoel, Cyle Brink, Embrose Papier, Chris Smith, Harold Vorster.

Heinrich Klaasen continued to display the form of old that first made him a Protea back in 2018 as he led the Northerns Titans to a comfortable 33-run win over the North-West Dragons in their CSA T20 Challenge match at St George’s Park on Tuesday.

Having been sent in to bat, Northerns were given a fine start by Quinton de Kock (34 off 17) and Theunis de Bruyn (25 off 19), but they still needed a good finish as they slipped to 78/4 inside the 10^th over.

Klaasen responded with a hard-hit 54 not out off 41 balls, his second half-century of the tournament, taking him to the fourth-most runs [226] at an average of 75.33.

With Donovan Ferreira scoring 37 not out off 35 balls, Northerns posted a highly-competitive 167/4.

Left-arm spinner Senuran Muthusamy was outstanding with the ball for North-West with 2/14 in his four overs, while Dwaine Pretorius took 1/26.

Veteran left-arm spinner Aaron Phangiso then bowled the Titans to victory as his 2/13 in four overs played the major role in North-West limping to 134/7.

All the Northerns bowlers were tight, though, with Aya Gqamane and Dewald Brevis also both picking up a brace of wickets.

In the afternoon game, the Boland Rocks were left hiding their heads in shame as they failed to chase down a target of 165 against the Free State Knights, despite only losing two wickets.

Free State won a thriller by three runs thanks to an outstanding final over of yorkers by Alfred Mothoa (4-0-33-0), who had 11 runs to defend.

Boland always looked in control with Janneman Malan scoring 33 off 25, Pieter Malan batting through for 60* off 51, Clyde Fortuin dashing to 46 off 31 and Christiaan Jonker adding 17* off 13, but in the end it was an ill-judged chase.

Spinner Gregory Mahlokoana (4-0-24-1) and Nealan van Heerden (4-0-30-0) also bowled tightly to leave the Rocks with too big of a mountain to climb in the end.

Free State posted 164/6 thanks to a solid batting display led by Chris Klijnhans (52 off 47) and Raynard van Tonder (38 off 33), while seamer Ziyaad Abrahams took 5/34, the best figures in the tournament so far.

Western Province will top the log if they beat the KZN Dolphins, who are also still in contention to join Northerns and Boland in the semi-finals, in Wednesday’s last day of round-robin matches. If KZN lose, then the winners of the Eastern Province Warriors versus North-West game will be the final qualifiers.

The decision by the Bulls to field top players like Bismarck du Plessis, Marcell Coetzee, Morne Steyn, Harold Vorster and Lionel Mapoe in the Currie Cup loans some credibility to the competition, but truth be told, there can be little doubt that the famous old tournament is now on its last legs.

Of course it helps the Bulls that they have deep pockets thanks to the generous investment of their equity partners. But they should not be criticised for being professional and organised enough to attract those investments and also recognising the need to significantly improve the depth of their squad now that they are playing in two competitions at the same time.

The fact that they have been willing to field a number of players who will feature in Saturday’s URC derby against the Stormers shows that they, at least, are taking the Currie Cup seriously, unlike so many in South African rugby.

The Sharks are probably in an even better position financially, but they made a slow start to the Currie Cup by beating Griquas by just one point in Durban. But conditions – hot and humid and then raining – were definitely a levelling factor and the Sharks were not helped by having to play the final quarter with 14 men due to a red card. But even with all their riches – both in personnel and in finances – the Sharks only fielded one Springbok in 33-year-old prop Lourens Adriaanse.

The Bulls being 40-0 up against archrivals Western Province at Newlands and the Pumas putting fifty past the Lions at Ellis Park does little for the credibility of the Currie Cup.

Little wonder then that the public response has been muted. If SA Rugby is barely interested in the Currie Cup, why should spectators pay good money to support it? The Currie Cup, from being South African rugby’s second biggest brand after the Springboks, is now so devalued and the public are not going to be fooled by all the hype when there is little substance.

Some people do enjoy rugby more from the aesthetic of plenty of tries being scored and this mishmash Currie Cup will probably provide that. But even the Bulls are unlikely to use their top players in it once the United Rugby Championship gets into full swing.

SA Rugby find themselves with a problem because the URC hasn’t captured the public imagination yet like SuperRugby did in the early days. In that regard Covid has obviously not helped, neither have the poor performances of the South African franchises overseas.

But a disjointed, lopsided competition – Jake White made the point that Saturday’s game at Loftus Versfeld is the Bulls’ first at home in the URC, which started on September 24 – now also has its waters further muddied by the Currie Cup taking place at the same time.

I would call it an absolute howler by SA Rugby but there are some extenuating circumstances in their defence.

First of all, it is the provinces who have said they want a double-round of Currie Cup, which then becomes a challenge to fit into an already crowded calendar. Player workload concerns are also a factor, with URC starting in January and running through to June 18, after which there is the Test window.

But the last time a normal Currie Cup season was played in a double round, it began on June 18 and ended on September 11. I would still play the Currie Cup after the URC. Sure, the current Springboks would not play, but when last did they feature in a proper Currie Cup anyway?

At the moment, this most famous of domestic competitions has been reduced to Vodacom Cup status.