Ken Borland

The view over the Franschhoek Valley from the pass leading to Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve.

Driving up the Franschhoek Pass to the car park of the Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve, the views over the famous wine-producing valley are already spectacular, but once I had parked, I was more interested in the beautifully chirpy, melodic twittering loudly emanating from somewhere close by.

Dashing off, I found a Cape Grassbird prominently perched on some scrubby Restios and singing away in the early-morning sunshine. For me, it is one of the prettiest calls around and I felt doubly blessed to also have such a good, clear sighting of an impressive bird that can look quite dapper with its black stripes on rusty red and a long tail.

Usually, the Grassbird is skulking around in dense vegetation, but in the fynbos areas of the Western Cape, it apparently becomes quite territorial and brazen in its calling from prominent perches.

Mont Rochelle protects prime mountain fynbos and although there are not great numbers of birds to see, especially when the mists come over the mountain, there is much of interest.

The view into Mont Rochelle Nature Reserve.

A lovely little Karoo Prinia, another streaky bird with a long tail, was also spotted as the undulating trail became more wind-swept, while Yellow Bishop were buzzing around the Proteas in the drainage lines and Cape Canary were also easily spotted.

The pretty town of Franschhoek itself is, understandably when you consider the name means “French Corner”, full of alien vegetation, most notably the vineyards that produce the marvellous wine, but that does not mean the birding is bad.

Some of the beautiful gardens of the town host Swee Waxbill feeding on the grasses in Spring time (late September for this trip), while the impressive Malachite Sunbird can find lots of nectar sources in town.

There are alien vertebrates to go with the introduced vegetation, with Grey Squirrels reaching the northern-most limit of their range in Franschhoek, and enjoying all the big trees of the urban areas, while Mallards frequent the Franschhoek River alongside the bird they most often hybridise with, the Yellowbilled Duck.

Helmeted Guineafowl are the most common bird of the actual vineyards, although we now call them “Wine Turkeys”.

That’s because the charming English couple we met on their honeymoon saw we were birders while we were on the wine tram (a magnificent way to do a tour of the estates) and started telling us about all the “Wine Turkeys” they had seen during the trip!

Sightings list

Egyptian Goose

Hadeda Ibis

Reed Cormorant

Swee Waxbill

Grey Squirrel

Helmeted Guineafowl

Chacma Baboon

Rock Martin

Cape Grassbird

Karoo Prinia

Pied Crow

Yellow Bishop

Cape Canary

Mallard

Cape Bulbul

Blacksmith Plover

Yellowbilled Duck

Blackshouldered Kite

Whitethroated Swallow

Cape White-Eye

Malachite Sunbird

Redwinged Starling

Sacred Ibis

If Cricket South Africa were a bowler, they would be the type that gives you an over comprising three great deliveries, beating the bat a couple of times and maybe bowling the batsman, and three rank full tosses that are hammered out of the park, and are no-balls just to make matters worse!

There are so many good things going on in CSA, so many people within that organisation who have a deep love for the game and are faithful servants of it, often at considerable cost to themselves. While those good balls are being bowled, it is easy to believe that everything in South African cricket is hunky dory and the future is bright.

Like when you go to the Centre of Excellence and National Academy in Pretoria. This is a superb facility where national teams can prepare with the latest technology at their fingertips.

The gadgets have recently been improved with the world’s most advanced batting simulator – the PitchVision Batting Studio – now installed. The high-tech bowling machine and smart lane equipped with sensors takes net batting to the next level. The simulator features a moveable bowling machine that can bowl over or around the wicket, videos of bowlers, shot-tracking, field setting and tracking of runs scored. The system also records technique for video analysis.

The batsman can set up any match scenario and bat with the realistic pressures of finding the gaps and trying to chase down a score at the death.

The technology even showed that I was planting my front leg when batting, but then a good coach could probably have pointed that out anyway. And, as I told coaches Shukri Conrad and Vincent Barnes, nobody has trapped me lbw for a long time! (Now I’m just tempting fate!)

There are lots of other good news stories around CSA at the moment, such as the thawing of relations with India. According to Haroon Lorgat, the CSA chief executive, the BCCI are keen on the idea of South Africa and India developing an icon series like the Ashes. The Proteas will be playing four Tests in India this year and the next tour to South Africa is not going to be the thoroughly inadequate shortened series which was foisted upon CSA in December 2013.

Sadly, however, there are still people in CSA who seem more intent on furthering their own agendas than the good of the game.

Despite CSA continuing to swear blind that there was nothing untoward in the selection of the team for the World Cup semi-final, that merit is the only criterion for the Proteas (except when the call is 50/50), the gathering of the cricket family this week for the CSA Awards (another example of how well they can do things) meant I was given yet more snippets of information that would seem to confirm that the side that took the field at Eden Park was not the one Russell Domingo, AB de Villiers or the selectors initially wanted.

And now, an event as happy and well-organised as the awards banquet has also been marred by the same faceless, cowardly interferers as allegations of the judges’ decisions being changed rear their ugly heads.

Two members of the judging panel confirmed to me that one of the franchise award-winners had been changed – that when they left their selection meeting, they were under the impression that a different player had won.

The last thing I want to do is cast aspersions on the ability and class of Robin Peterson (poor Vernon Philander was shamefully treated by the World Cup fiasco), whom I rate highly and believe should be in the Test squad ahead of Aaron Phangiso, but apparently he was the third-choice for the Momentum One-Day Cup Player of the Season, behind Dean Elgar and Andrew Puttick.

So the last week has pretty much summed up CSA’s performance in general: leading the field in many ways, like the centre of excellence in Pretoria, enjoying the support of an ever-growing list of sponsors and putting on superb events, but then also shooting themselves in the foot through dishonesty and backroom dealings. It felt like a family gathering this week, even if the family is dysfunctional at times, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t some members who really would be better suited to Fifa than cricket administration.

If the Sharks were in any doubt about Griquas presenting them with a tough challenge in their Currie Cup match at Kings Park on Friday night, then the fact that the Northern Cape side have won their last two matches in Durban should dispel any notions of a stroll in the park.

Although the KwaZulu-Natalians beat Griquas 45-20 in Kimberley last year, Griquas won 21-18 at Kings Park in 2014, repeating their 32-30 triumph there in 2013, and Sharks coach Robert du Preez is in no mood for complacency this week.

“Griquas are a very tough side, they’ll be very physical, and we have to bring our A game to beat them,” Du Preez said.

While the Sharks at their best are able to keep ball in hand and stretch most defences, it will be up front in the trenches where Friday night’s game will be won or lost.

“We’re looking to keep ball-in-hand for longer and play more rugby, but the forwards need to create the space on the outside, they need to be direct and dominate contact. You have to earn the right to go wide.

“Griquas are always gutsy, they did well in the qualifiers and I think we’re up for a hard game. They’ll come out and play good rugby, with a lot of energy running on to the ball. They enjoy playing with the ball, they’re unpredictable and they also have their maul and their direct forward play,” loose forward Philip van der Walt said.

Griquas were the leading qualifiers from the preliminary stage, with 11 wins in 14 games, but the whole EP Kings saga has hampered the momentum they would have wanted to take into the Premier Division.

They were originally going to play the Kings in last weekend’s opening round of fixtues, but then it was going to be the Leopards and then they ended up eventually having a bye.

“It has been an unbelievably frustrating couple of weeks, it’s been difficult. We have been doing analysis on three different teams, focused training with a team picked to play the Leopards and then we did not even have a game last week. Some key players were rested for the last game of the qualifiers and the result is some players have not played for over four weeks!

“Mentally it has been difficult and after finishing as the first qualifiers we did not expect this, but we have been training hard, we refocused and will ensure we give everything to make our supporters proud of Griquas,” Peter Engledow, the coach of Griquas, told the side’s website.