Ken Borland

Kathu (Northern Cape) – There were nearly 35 excited children from the Kuruman chapter of the South African Golf Development Board at the Sishen Golf Club driving range on Thursday, taking part in the Vodacom Origins of Golf development clinic and receiving coaching on the basics of the game from Sunshine Tour professionals, but one little guy stood out because he has been teeing it up around the country in junior golf with some success.

Delrico Agterdam is just 10 years old but he already plays off a seven and he is ranked the number two junior in the Northern Cape. For the last two years, he has received his provincial colours for the U13 team.

Considering how much younger he is than his fellow competitors, it is tantalising to think how good Agterdam will be once he fills out a bit.

Annemarie Rabie is the SAGDB coach for the Kuruman area and she was at Sishen Golf Club on Thursday. She says there is little else Agterdam is interested in other than golf.

“Delrico thinks about golf all the time. He eats and sleeps for the game and he really wants to become a professional golfer when he is big. He started playing when he was really small and he puts in a lot of work. The great thing about him is that I can give him a lesson today and tomorrow he will be practising that exact thing and remembering what I taught him,” Rabie says.

Agterdam’s father works at Kuruman Country Club and Rabie first saw him there, just playing around with a club and a ball. The talent was obvious.

Giving disadvantaged golfers the opportunity and exposure to express and fulfil that talent is what the Vodacom Origins of Golf development clinics are all about. But while Agterdam will be aiming to write his name in the annals of the game, the clinics also help engender a love for golf amongst all the other kids. Vodacom wants them to know that there is a place for them in this great game, whether that be as a player, fan, coach or administrator.

“These clinics are really excellent and it was so amazing to see how much the kids enjoyed it. They were like little sponges and they all had a million stories to tell on the 45km drive back to Kuruman. It’s just amazing what Vodacom do, if there weren’t these clinics then these kids would never have been coached by Sunshine Tour pros, or have met them or have played on a course like Sishen Golf Club.

“And when we got to Kuruman Country Club, Delrico climbed out of the car and said he wanted to go and play a few holes, he was so inspired!” Rabie laughed.

Bloemfontein (July 20, 2024) – South Africa coach Rassie Erasmus said improving their discipline would be a pivotal part of their focus in the Rugby Championship after they beat Portugal 64-21 in their one-off Test in Bloemfontein on Saturday, despite playing with 14 men from the third minute and with 13 players for 16 minutes.

Centre Andre Esterhuizen was given an early yellow card for head-on-head contact after a crunching tackle on Jose’ Lima sent the Portuguese No.13 off the field with a concussion. Esterhuizen’s yellow card was later upgraded to a red by the television match official.

The Springboks also had wing Kurt-Lee Arendse yellow-carded in the 34^th minute for a dangerous clear-out at a ruck, and debutant replacement fullback Quan Horn was also sent to the sin-bin after playing an opponent in the air in the 74^th minute.

“Discipline is something we will need to look at after getting a red card so early. We had nearly 20 minutes with 13 men and the rest with 14, and obviously we won’t win World Cups like that. So that is something we will focus on. The incidents were all accidents, they weren’t things the players did on purpose.

“But we had to adapt to having 14 or 13 men, so that is a good thing. You get to learn the character of the players in matches like this. We had Duane Vermeulen next to the field and Gerry Flannery was planning how to defend without a blindside wing or a centre. On the field, the players can get rattled or stay calm, so there were big learnings from that tonight,” Erasmus said.

Conceding 10 tries but scoring three themselves was no disgrace for Portugal in their first meeting with South Africa, and their coach Simon Mannix said he could not have been more proud of his team.

“The lessons were enormous tonight and we were monstered in a lot of areas. The physicality of the Springboks was something else and the players felt it was two or three levels higher than what they experienced in the 2023 World Cup.

“I’m not naïve, I know it was a South Africa B team we played against, but they played some really good rugby, they have great athletes. We were beaten up at the breakdown and in a lot of areas, but we showed a lot of courage. I could not be more proud of the boys.

“We will learn and get better, but I’m very proud of the way we tried to play some rugby, especially in the first 10 minutes. We showed we can move the ball and go wide. This was an historic event and I hope the players will remember those first 10 minutes, we showed we were here to play and what we can do, we exposed them on the outside, which I was delighted about.

“We learnt so much about ourselves tonight, you can’t look at it negatively. There’s a huge gulf between No.15 and No.1 in the world. One of my players is in the fifth division in France and tonight he started against the Springboks. We have no full-time pros, but we have incredible spirit,” Mannix said.

South Africa kick off their Rugby Championship campaign against Australia in Brisbane on August 10.

Proteas batting coach Justin Sammons says a large part of his team’s batting woes this year is due to their lack of experience because they do not play enough red-ball cricket.

While South Africa already play less Test cricket than most teams – a situation which will worsen markedly in the next couple of years – Cricket South Africa have also cut the number of four-day matches the provinces play to just seven per season due to financial constraints.

It means the country’s top batting talent may only play ten first-class innings a season when the effects of the weather and innings victories are thrown into the equation. Senior Proteas have also been conspicuous by their absence in domestic cricket, which weakens both the batting and bowling standard of the competition.

“What’s very important to realise is that there is no substitute for experience and you only gain that from playing,” Sammons said on Friday in Sydney. “The more you play, the more experience you get and the more lessons you learn.

“As a country, we need to look at how we look after the four-day system going forward. With the way the world is going, it’s a tricky balancing act, but we do need to find a way.

“The bottom line is that the players need to play as much cricket as possible. We’ve got to think out of the box, whether that’s the board or the director of cricket.

“But there has to be a way. We can’t just resign ourselves to T20 dominating and not playing enough first-class cricket. I believe the key for us is playing more four-day cricket,” Sammons said.

While the batting coach admitted that the batsmen were suffering from a lack of confidence, one positive has been the form of wicketkeeper Kyle Verreynne, who has proven himself to be a tenacious customer. Verreynne was one of only three Proteas batsmen to average more than 30 (32.12) in 2022, the others being Temba Bavuma (40.07) and Keegan Petersen (38.38).

“The growth in Kyle’s game has been tremendous, both technically and obviously mentally,” Sammons said. “The key I think is that he has figured out his own way of playing at his tempo.

“He has stuck to the tempo that allows him to be successful. He will continue to work on that, but he’s clear in terms of his identity as a cricketer, he understands how to go about scoring runs.

“He’s like Dean Elgar, Jacques Kallis or Graeme Smith in that you knew what you would get from them. I think he has that clear identity of who he is as a cricketer, which goes a long way.

“Following the England series, in tough conditions, our batsmen’s confidence was dented a bit. And then the first Test here the conditions really favoured the bowlers and naturally the confidence was hit even more,” Sammons said.

The Proteas play their final game on Tuesday before heading off to Australia for the T20 World Cup, the deciding match in their ODI series in India, and surely Reeza Hendricks must now be a part of every white-ball game for at least the next month?

Hendricks belatedly played his first match in India at the weekend, brought into the XI because regular captain Temba Bavuma was ill, and looked pure class he stroked 74 off 76 balls on a tricky, low-and-slow pitch in Ranchi.

It means Hendricks has now scored 370 runs in his last six innings for South Africa, dating back to July. That is the sort of form that it would be criminal to waste, especially for a batting line-up that has had some horror collapses of late.

Because Hendricks is in the T20 World Cup squad but Janneman Malan is not, one would expect Malan to be the player who makes way on Tuesday if Bavuma is fit to play again. Although Malan’s overall career ODI stats are still superb, in his last 12 innings, he averages just 24.83 at a strike-rate of only 69.95.

Of course, Hendricks should also be in the XI at the T20 World Cup, but he would have to replace captain Bavuma. But if ever there was a good argument for leaving out the appointed skipper, the difference in confidence and output that Hendricks would bring has to be it.

While Bavuma’s position is the major talking point heading into the World Cup, the form of spinner Tabraiz Shamsi is also concerning. Sixteen months ago he was first on the T20 bowling rankings, but his performances have been on the slide in India.

It has never been his favourite place to play, and India’s ruthless aggression towards him has made his life difficult, knocking his confidence.

Hopefully he will be out of this weirdly erratic phase in Australia, because he plays an important role in South Africa’s T20 team. Shamsi was also ill over the weekend and his wicket-taking ability in the middle overs was missed by the Proteas in the second ODI, as Ishan Kishan and Shreyas Iyer belted their way to victory by seven wickets with 25 balls to spare.