Ken Borland

The last time AB de Villiers led South Africa was in December 2017 as the stand-in captain for the only day/night Test this country has hosted – an innovation that turned into a freak show as Zimbabwe were beaten by an innings-and-120-runs in less than two days at St George’s Park.

The experiment has never been repeated by the Proteas. But De Villiers will be back at the helm of another national team when he skippers the South Africa squad in another innovative cricket event – the World Championship of Legends to be held in England from July 18 to August 2.

This enterprising T20 tournament has already enjoyed a successful first season, with 325 million viewers watching the televised matches last year, and more than 100 000 spectators coming to the stadiums used for the inaugural event – Edgbaston in Birmingham and the Northampton County Ground.

This year, the venues being used have doubled to include Grace Road in Leicester and Headingley in Leeds. The tournament is open to any cricketer who is 33 or older and is not signed up by their national board.

The South African team that missed out on the semifinals last year on nett run-rate included several players of the world-beating side of around 15 years ago – JP Duminy, Jacques Kallis, Neil McKenzie, Charl Langeveldt, Vernon Philander, Ryan McLaren, Dale Steyn, Imran Tahir, Herschelle Gibbs, Makhaya Ntini and Ashwell Prince.

But they lost their first three games against much younger teams, but then beat India and Pakistan, the two sides that contested the final, which India won.  The turnaround came largely due to the introduction of two current players in Sarel Erwee and Jacques Snyman. The lesson has been learned, though, and De Villiers will lead a squad that features many more players of the previous decade and not the one before that.

The likes of Aaron Phangiso, Hardus Viljoen, Wayne Parnell, Duanne Olivier, Jon-Jon Smuts and Erwee all played domestic franchise cricket last summer. Viljoen, Parnell, Smuts and Erwee have been part of the SA20 competition.

The firepower that still-fast bowlers like Viljoen, Parnell and Olivier can bring suggests South Africa are going back to the traditional strength of pace bowling.

The presence of De Villiers, still the hero of millions, is a massive coup for the World Championship of Legends, along with the recently-retired Chris Morris, Albie Morkel and Hashim Amla.

De Villiers said he made the decision to return to playing cricket thanks to the backyard games he is involved in with his two boys, aged nine and seven. He will be hoping to continue in the same vein as the tremendous 101 not out he scored off just 28 balls for the Titans Legends against the Bulls Legends at SuperSport Park on March 9.

“The kids keep me busy playing cricket in the garden, I’ve become a bowler thanks to them,” the 41-year-old De Villiers said at the launch of the South Africa Champions team at the Wanderers. “I’ve really enjoyed playing with them and now I want to go out and enjoy every second on the cricket field again. I’ll be with familiar faces and I will just go out and compete and hopefully we can sneak in a few wins.

“To be honest, the bowling wasn’t too hard against the Bulls and I started two weeks before with net sessions. But I’ve always had a lot of respect for my opponents, sometimes they have won our contests. So I just want to enjoy some more special moments with my team-mates, I haven’t been in a changeroom for many years,” De Villiers said.

Amla has travelled to Qatar and India in recent years to play in Masters tournaments and will also be looking to continue some good recent form as he scored 76 and 82* in the recent International Masters League earlier this year.

“I was really worried when I went to India in February having had just one net beforehand, worried if I could still see the ball,” Amla said with a chuckle. “But it went well, although it takes time to get back into it.

“The competitiveness is actually very high, there are top cricketers playing like Chris Gayle, the Universe Boss. And we will be wearing South Africa on our chest, so we are representing the country,” Amla said.

South Africa squad: Aaron Phangiso, Hardus Viljoen, Wayne Parnell, Chris Morris, AB de Villiers, Duanne Olivier, Jon-Jon Smuts, Sarel Erwee, Imran Tahir, Morne van Wyk, Dane Vilas, Albie Morkel, Richard Levi, Hashim Amla.

Heinrich Klaasen will be playing in his third T20 World Cup but, given how complete a batsman he has become in the format, it is astonishing to think that he has only played four matches for the Proteas in the two previous editions of the showpiece event.

In the 2021 T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates, Klaasen only played in the opening two matches, scoring a run-a-ball 13 against Australia but did not bat against the West Indies. He then made way for Quinton de Kock or Reeza Hendricks, depending on how you looked at the shuffled batting line-up.

The following year, in Australia, he played in South Africa’s last two games, both lost, as the replacement for the injured David Miller, scoring 15 and 21.

The Proteas will depend far more heavily on Klaasen in this year’s World Cup, which got underway in the early hours of this morning, with South Africa opening their campaign against Sri Lanka in New York on Monday evening (SA time). That’s because the 32-year-old now smashes the cricket ball with so much power and consistency that he is undoubtedly considered to be one of the best T20 batsmen in the world.

Which is why the Sunrisers Hyderabad bought him for nearly R12 million for the Indian Premier League in 2023 and he has certainly repaid them. Klaasen averaged 49.78 and scored at a blistering strike-rate of 177.08 last year, and last week he helped his team into the 2024 final by scoring 479 runs at 39.92 and a strike-rate of 171.07.

This year’s figures included what he called a mid-season slump in which he scored ‘only’ 42 runs in three innings.

Now at the height of his powers, Klaasen finds ways of dealing with the immense pressure of expectation from the fanatical Indian fans and the team owners paying millions for his services, which should stand him and his fellow IPL stars in good stead during the more nervewracking moments of the World Cup. More often than not, Klaasen’s route to success is by not changing anything – he says staying true to himself and his game-plan is the key.

“I was a little disappointed because I was quite average in the middle of the IPL, but I was still pleased with my figures after such a bad run and hopefully I can carry that into the World Cup,” Klaasen told Rapport from Fort Lauderdale this week.

“My success is based on not moving away from what I do and during that dip, I moved away from my game-plan. I was trying to chase a strike-rate of more than 200 because the pitches were good for batting in the IPL and the execution of the batsmen was on another level. My strike-rate had dropped to 180 and I started to look at my numbers rather than just play.

“I was trying to hit more sixes to try and get back to 200. But I had a nice, hard chat with myself and also spoke with AB de Villiers, and stopped looking at my numbers. I got back to what I normally do and my form came right back immediately. The problem was my focus was wrong.

“But in the IPL you are measured by the number of sixes you hit and your strike-rate, no-one looks at your average. And the impact sub rule meant everyone was playing with a lot more freedom, so there’s a lot of pressure on you because strike-rate is your bread-and-butter. And then you have a couple of interviews where the media highlight your stats and then your first six balls don’t go according to plan and it plays in your head. You don’t follow your process. You just have to be mentally strong enough to recognise it and not fall into the trap,” Klaasen said.

Speaking of mental strength, it is an area of the Proteas’ game that is always under the spotlight at World Cups, but Klaasen, a phlegmatic character at the best of times, believes the number of players in the squad who have experienced and performed under the heaving pressure of the IPL should ensure there is no choking or puking due to nervousness.

“A lot of the guys have played in the IPL, where there is a lot of pressure and expectation. So we can tap into that, stay nice and calm and just focus on our execution. I firmly believe that if we execute well, then there’s no team that can beat us. And the majority of our IPL players are in good form too.

“In our last three World Cups [including the 2023 50-over event in India], we had only one bad one in Australia. In the UAE, we lost one out of five matches but missed out on nett run-rate, and in last year’s ODI World Cup in India we played some unbelievable cricket and reached the semi-finals.

“So we are playing good world cup cricket. The squad has a maturity about it and we are gelling nicely. We just have to play the big moments well,” Klaasen said.

But before Proteas fans get into a froth about the knockout stages, South Africa still have to clean up some awkward opposition in their opening group.

“Our first few matches are going to be our most important,” Klaasen said. “We are in a tricky group – Sri Lanka are very dangerous, the Netherlands have beaten us twice before and Bangladesh can beat any team on their day.

“So it’s important we get off to a very good start, that will relax us and then we can keep building on our confidence and focus on what we do best and our intensity,” Klaasen said.

Now they just need the rain forecast for Monday morning in New York to stay away …

While the capricious Cape winds toyed with most of the field, only nine golfers shooting under the par mark of 74, Kylie Henry flourished, posting a five-under-par 69 to lead after the first round of the Standard Bank Ladies Open at Royal Cape Golf Club on Wednesday.

Coming from Scotland, Henry ought to be comfortable in the wind, and it showed in a top-class round that featured an eagle on her second hole, the par-five 11^th, followed by four birdies and just a single bogey.

The winner of the opening event in this year’s Sunshine Ladies Tour, the Dimension Data Ladies Pro-Am at Fancourt, also in the Western Cape, went out from the 10^th and reached the clubhouse in four-under, before coming home in one-under as the wind became stronger on her back nine.

“It was pretty windy today, but it does that here and I’ve had quite a lot of experience in the wind, most of the time I manage to judge it well. I do enjoy these good, strong courses. Royal Cape is a great layout and in really good condition, and Fancourt was amazing, a brilliant test.

“Some holes were really quite tough today, with crosswinds or the wind into you, but I played really good golf. I gave myself lots of birdie chances because my iron play was really solid, and then my putting was the best part of my game. It’s quite a tight course, so I drove the ball well too.

“Both nines are similar, but the wind just got stronger when I was on the front nine, so the back nine was slightly easier for me and I hit a lot of good shots,” Henry said.

South Africans Shawnelle de Lange (71) and Lora Assad (72) are Henry’s closest challengers, while compatriot Kiera Floyd is one of the six golfers who posted one-under-par 73.

Like a flower opening up its corolla to show the beauty within, this Sunshine Ladies Tour season has really seen Floyd unveil her huge talent. The 19-year-old finished tied-fourth in last week’s Fidelity ADT Ladies Challenge at Blue Valley, she was in contention after the first round of the SuperSport Ladies Challenge at Sun City, and she was tied-second going into the final round at Fancourt.

De Lange dropped only one shot, on the par-four 10^th, but finished superbly with three birdies in the last four holes.

Assad began her round on the 10^th and immediately dropped a shot, but she fought back brilliantly with birdies on the 13^th, 14^th, 16^th and 18^th holes. The 31-year-old suffered a couple of bogeys on the front nine, but finished well with a birdie to post two-under.

Floyd began a rollercoaster round on the 10^th with a bogey, but reached the turn in two-under, before making one birdies and two bogeys coming home.

Frenchwomen Emie Peronnin and Ariane Klotz, Norway’s Maiken Bing Paulsen, Florentyna Parker of England and India’s Tvesa Malik, winner of the SuperSport Ladies Challenge, are the other golfers on one-under-par.

Expectation can be an unkind burden for young cricketers and it would only have been human for Kwena Maphaka to feel the pressure during the ICC U19 World Cup hosted by South Africa. But instead the DP World Lions rising star showed his mettle by flourishing and enjoying a spectacular tournament.

The St Stithians pupil was named the Player of the Tournament for his 21 wickets, just one short of the all-time record at the event. Bangladesh spinner Enamul Haque took 22 wickets in 2004, but one record Maphaka did claim for himself was for three five-wicket hauls in a single edition of the U19 World Cup, which no-one had managed before.

He is the fourth South African to receive the honour, the first being current DP World Lions men’s captain Dominic Hendricks in 2010. Aiden Markram (2014) and Dewald Brevis (2022) are the others to bring the individual title back to Mzansi.

Left-arm fast bowler Maphaka is a prodigy, of that there is no doubt, and the 17-year-old was playing in his second junior world cup. He first played for the St Stithians first XI in Grade IX, so he has had to deal with expectation from a very young age.

“I’ve learnt how to deal with it quite well, there is always expectation. It’s getting higher as I get older, but I’m just trying to grow as a cricketer at the same pace,” Maphaka says.

“On a personal level I was quite happy with the tournament, but it was unfortunate that we did not go through from the semifinals and win as a team. But that’s cricket.

“I guess I just hit a run of form and when you’re in that purple patch you feel confident and that there’s not much that can stop you. The games were all so close together and I was in good mental places, so I just ran with it,” Maphaka says.

Having fulfilled his considerable potential at junior level, the matric student will be prioritising his academics in 2024, but he is already part of the DP World Lions men’s squad. He made his debut for them on November 30 at St George’s Park, taking four wickets in the match against the Warriors. He had already made his first-class debut back in June last year when he was fast-tracked into the SA A team in Sri Lanka by Test coach Shukri Conrad.

Maphaka is sure to still pop up from time-to-time this year as he begins to transition into senior cricket.

“This year my first priority is to pass matric, so my focus will be on school, that’s my main goal. From next year onwards I can focus on domestic cricket and I hope to make my name with the DP World Lions. Then maybe in a couple of years I will be fortunate enough to represent the Proteas,” Maphaka says.

By then he could quite possibly be running the joint, just like his predecessor at St Stithians and the DP World Lions, the great Kagiso Rabada.

DP World Lions bowling coach Allan Donald sees some similarities between Maphaka and Rabada, who he coached in his first few months at international level with the Proteas.

“You get these youngsters who you just absolutely know have got it and they’ve got the jewels to go the whole way, like KG. The first time I saw Kwena I could see he had everything – he’s fit, strong and athletic; he has a good action and a magnificent wrist.

“We saw in the U19 World Cup that he was bowling late-inswinging full balls to the right-handers, knocking over the stumps at pace. He has all the credentials to be a wonderful prospect. Every now and then you get a freakish cricketer and Kwena is one of those.

“It’s a privilege to be involved with him and I look forward to him joining us full-time when he’s finished school. He is just a gem and the world is at his feet,” Donald said.