Ken Borland

Bulls coach Jake White was quick to point out the relative inexperience of his side compared to Edinburgh and how impressed he was that they managed to pull a 33-31 victory out of the fire in their United Rugby Championship match at Loftus Versfeld, while acknowledging that they are still not where they want to be in terms of performance.

Edinburgh, disrupted by the loss of flyhalf Blair Kinghorn due to a stomach bug on the day of the game, and then his replacement Jaco van der Walt after 15 minutes, as well as substitute back Chris Dean injuring himself in the warm-up, made an error-strewn start to the game that included their captain Grant Gilchrist being yellow-carded.

The Bulls capitalised superbly and raced into a 15-0 lead, but Edinburgh were quick to show their quality and strike back once they had settled. They trailed by just one point at halftime and then led 31-30 going into the last 10 minutes.

Morne Steyn would be the hero for the Bulls with a tricky 78^th-minute penalty, although Edinburgh fullback Henry Immelman missed a long-range effort after the final hooter.

“The margins are very small in this competition and that last kick was worth three points on the log,” a relieved White said. “You can’t underestimate how tough Edinburgh are.

“We need to be mindful that in their pack, they have players with more Test caps than we have URC caps. We have one of the youngest teams in the URC.

“We got ourselves 15-0 up, scoring relatively easily, and they’re only human, they maybe thought it would just happen on its own. But you’ve got to work very hard.

“We are far from where we need to be, but to show that composure, to not just accept that maybe it wasn’t our day, that’s a massive confidence boost. I’m very glad we managed to do enough to win,” White said.

The Bulls car ran beautifully smoothly at times, but at other times it spluttered along, leading to a dingdong match that was like a rush-hour taxi ride through central Joburg.

“At times we were outstanding, we would defend for three or four sets and then suddenly miss a tackle,” White admitted. “Or we would keep ball for phase-after-phase, and then give a poor pass or get our timing wrong.

“But we are a young team and we mustn’t get ahead of ourselves. It will do them good to learn and experience this pressure,” White said.

The fitness of South Africa’s batting line-up for Test cricket was once again called into question as they were bowled out cheaply for the second time in the third Test against England, with the home side rushing to the brink of victory until only poor light stopped them at The Oval on Sunday evening.

This was despite restricting England to just a 40-run first-innings lead and a first-wicket stand of 58 between Sarel Erwee (26) and Dean Elgar (36). England’s pacemen once again bowled superbly to dismiss South Africa for just 169 in their second innings, leaving them with a target of 130 for victory, and openers Zak Crawley (57 not out off just 44 balls) and Alex Lees (32*) batted in dashing fashion to get them to 97 without loss in just 17 overs. England will need just 33 more runs on Monday’s final morning to win the Test and the series.

It was a sad ending to the day for the Proteas after they had enjoyed a magnificent morning session.

England had resumed their first innings on 154/7 and Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen needed just 16 balls to wrap up the innings for only 158.

Jansen (12.2-2-35-5) claimed his maiden five-wicket haul and showed what a bright future he has as a Test strike bowler, while Rabada showed that class is permanent as he rebounded from a poor first eight wicketless overs for 63 runs to end with 4/81 in 13 overs.

South Africa were looking good on 70/1 at lunch, but three overs after the break, Elgar showed poor decision-making as he failed to review when Stuart Broad, bowling around the wicket and angling the ball into the left-hander, won an lbw decision against him. Replays showed the ball was clearly missing leg-stump and Elgar’s battling innings ended on 36.

Veteran quicks Broad (13-2-45-3) and Anderson (15.2-4-37-2) then turned the screw with some wonderful pressure bowling and the Proteas batsmen were simply unable to get out of their hole. They lost their last nine wickets for 86 runs, with Ben Stokes (13-2-39-3) once again taking key wickets and Ollie Robinson producing a telling double-strike against the middle-order as England got the ball swinging prodigiously.

Needing just 130, England were obviously overwhelming favourites and South Africa needed early wickets and quickly. Rabada found Lees’s outside edge with the first ball of the innings but Jansen, lunging to his left at fourth slip, dropped a two-handed chance.

The bowlers, having toted around such a heavy burden in this series due to the horribly misfiring batting, just could not lift themselves to perform any miracles after that.

Despite technological difficulties meaning the video for their big name reveal of the new SA 20 could not be played, the commissioner of the T20 franchise league, Graeme Smith, did not need to be beeped out once at the announcement on Wednesday, suggesting preparations are going relatively smoothly for the basket that is seemingly holding all Cricket South Africa’s eggs in the coming years.

Smith is under enormous pressure to deliver a successful T20 franchise league at CSA’s third attempt, but it seems the former Proteas captain is bringing the same cool, unruffled head as he did at the crease. In terms of time-frames, it is a bit of a T20 dash, and now that the name – SA 20 – has been unveiled, the player auction in Cape Town on September 19 will be the next big landmark.

“It’s a simple name, but something we can really own and bring to life,” Smith said. “We’re very excited by what can be done with it and what we can create. One of our taglines is For Everyone.

“Hopefully it will bring people together and new fans to the game, give them the opportunity to love cricket. Hopefully the highly-competitive cricket will stand out.

“To see it come to life is very exciting and hopefully there will be full stadiums and great excitement. We’ve had very tight timelines, just five months to get the league going, so we’ve had to be agile,” Smith said.

While there has been some debate over how star players like Rashid Khan (BBL), Moeen Ali (UAE) and Liam Livingstone (BBL) are going to meet their commitments to both the SA 20 and the other leagues they have signed for over the festive season, Smith said he is pleased with the players available for his league.

“We’ve attracted some high-quality players. Our league is South African focused – 60-70 of them playing on a global platform – but we do have extensive overseas interest, an immense number of players have registered for the auction.

“The Big Bash League will have a different structure this season and they’ve allowed players to play in Australia for a portion of the tournament. So from early January, those Big Bash players who have signed for the South African league will be fully available.

“There are a few players who have also signed for the Emirates league. I was in the UAE last week and met with the league and we’ve agreed a way to handle it – we’ve allowed the players to feel comfortable to choose where they play. There needs to be a way we both co-exist,” Smith said.

For cricket lovers, especially those who value the Test format above all others, the direction in which the sport seems to be heading, judging by the events of the last week, are enough to make you want to tear your hair out.

For many, the fact that the Proteas, who seem on the verge of entering a very exciting era in red-ball cricket, will play just 28 Tests in the next five years is infuriating and bordering on tragic at the same time. When one sees how fabulously Kagiso Rabada is bowling, how promising his fellow pacemen Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi and Marco Jansen look, as well as spin-king Keshav Maharaj, and one realises they will never get the chance to put up the same sort of numbers as lesser cricketers from England, India or Australia, then it is natural to feel great distress.

And then one seeks someone to blame for the damage they have done to something as loved and cherished as Test cricket.

Which just leads to more frustration because there are a multitude of players who have let down the game – the International Cricket Council, The Big Three, Cricket South Africa, all the different T20 franchise leagues, broadcasters, sponsors, and even us, the fans.

I am confident Test cricket will be played in heaven, where there will be infinite resources, but here on earth the game has to deal with finite amounts of time and money. Test cricket takes up the most time (part of its attraction for me), while T20 generates the most money.

When it comes to money, only The Big Three of India, England and Australia are financially secure and can carry on as normal, although their tendency to hog the calendar and the dollars amongst themselves does no good to the game as a whole, unless they are happy having just three countries playing at the top level.

For the rest, they are being squeezed into an intractable situation where they cannot afford to play bilateral cricket unless it is against one of the above trio, and they are also losing spots on the calendar and their top players to the T20 leagues that are, frankly, becoming an epidemic.

No matter how well the Proteas are doing, we have to realise that, however we try to dress up our cricket, we have become bit-part players in the global game. The fact that only Zimbabwe will play less international cricket over the next five years says it all.

Although the new administration are doing a good job in bringing stability to South African cricket, the failures of the previous boards and executive is now coming back to haunt them. Not only did they leave CSA with empty coffers, but we have little standing at the ICC. South African cricket is seen as insignificant players in the boardroom, their administrators inexperienced in the ruthless environment of the ICC.

One often wonders whether the ICC are there to look after the best interests of all the countries that play the game or are they just there to do the bidding of the three nations that dominate or monopolise the sport. On their own website, they say “the ICC governs and administrates the game and works with our members to grow the sport”.

Is that in just three countries or globally and surely governs implies a leadership role?

While fingers are rightfully pointed at the ICC for their lack of leadership in grappling with these complex issues, we, as fans, also need to look at ourselves.

South Africa’s reduced Test schedule was greeted with outrage and, as CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki has said, hopefully that hunger for more long-form cricket will translate into much-improved attendances at the stadiums.

So bring your families and show the powers-that-be and the broadcasters that Test cricket is still a much-loved product.

Recent surveys by Fica, the international body of players’ associations, show that the majority of players still regard Test cricket as the pinnacle.

Let’s all get behind that sentiment.