Ken Borland

Cricket South Africa are hopeful that club cricketers will be able to return to training in the next month or two, which will be excellent news for the many people who are employed in that sphere even though it is strictly speaking amateur sport.

CSA cricket services manager Eddie Khoza told The Citizen that amateur cricket was very much part of their planning because they were well aware that many people earned a living from the game at that level, and that the grassroots are the foundation of the game.

“At the moment only professional teams have been given permission to play by government and that under strict regulations. But as part of our scenario planning, CSA have implemented a phased approach for the amateur game because it also provides a lot of employment i.e. private coaches. And if we don’t, by the time we get to Level I there might not be any clubs to get back to.

“But the medical protocols required to play at the moment are not really affordable for amateur teams. Which is why we applied for one-on-one coaching in Level III and in Level II five players and a coach are allowed. Hopefully in September/October we can start pre-season activities, by October we can be having a really thorough pre-season for clubs, schools, universities, and we would like all matches to commence on January 1, 2021,” Khoza said.

Amateur cricketers can breathe easy that CSA have not forgotten about them, but they are also trying to ensure that the thousands of club and school cricketers stay safe as well.

“The medical advice we have received is that in order to play competitive cricket again, the players need six-to-eight weeks of training, so October to December will allow that. Many schools and universities have anyway already said that they won’t be having any extramural activities for the rest of the year,” Khoza added.

The monotony of Lockdown has sent many people out to lunch but for Quinton de Kock the same simple ‘see ball, hit ball’ approach that makes him such a great cricketer has seen him get through the winter so far in typically phlegmatic fashion.

Named CSA’s Men’s Cricketer of the Year at the weekend, De Kock said he has not hit a single ball since the end of last season, but is comfortable that there is plenty of time for him to launch a reinvigorated assault on the bowlers of the world.

In 2019/20, De Kock scored 536 runs in seven Tests at an average of 38.28, with one century and four fifties, while he has also averaged 38, with one century and four half-centuries, in 15 ODIs in the last year. He also reached fifty four times in eight T20 Internationals, averaging a remarkable 48.42 at a strike rate of 167.

The left-handed wicketkeeper/batsman scored more Test runs in 2019 than any other Protea (713, 216 more than Faf du Plessis), but has set his sights on scoring more hundreds in the coming season.

“I’ve had the world’s best Lockdown, I’ve been very busy doing nothing. I’ve kept up with my fitness and training in the gym, but I’m based in a very remote place [Garden Route] and there’s not much cricket around here. But practice is mostly muscle memory and there’s still so much time before our next game, you could end up hitting balls for no reason. I needed the break and tried to stay away from cricket.

“But in terms of fulfilling my potential, I would only rank myself about 6.5 out of 10. I had too many starts without progressing, I’m tough on myself and to be honest I’d love to convert those starts into even bigger runs. I wanted to come up the order, I’m happy at five for now and I feel that I can score big hundreds there,” De Kock said after also being named Test Cricketer of the Year and Players’ Player of the Year.

One thing De Kock was adamant about is that he is not going to try and take on the Test captaincy as well as his role as white-ball skipper, wicketkeeper and key batsman.

“Mark Boucher and I had an informal chat and I said I wasn’t sure about the Test captaincy. It would be too much to handle, I realise that now, to be wicketkeeper and captain, I don’t need all that stress, I could see that a mile away,” De Kock said.

Laura Wolvaardt was named the Women’s Cricketer of the Year, largely on the back of her superb performances in steering South Africa to the semi-finals of the ICC World T20 in Australia, and the 21-year-old said the Proteas will try their utmost to do even better in their 50-over World Cup scheduled for January.

“Our main focus has been that ODI World Cup for the last three-and-a-bit years and once we start playing again it will be full steam ahead towards that. The T20 World Cup in Australia will always have a special place in my heart, just the way the team played and the brand of cricket we produced was very special. It was incredible how we performed.

“I definitely did not see all this success coming at all at the start of the season, especially my role at five in the T20s, and I’m very glad it went well. It was the magical idea of the selectors to move me there because I’d had struggles in the powerplay up front. It gave me more freedom once the field was spread, I could rotate the strike a bit more while getting set,” Wolvaardt said.

As a spokesman for maintaining successful relationships with their players, Cricket Australia would hardly seem to be the first people one would ask for advice, but that is what the Cricket South Africa leadership have elected to do as they approach negotiations with their own players on their new memorandum of understanding.

The revenue-sharing model that has underpinned the memorandum of understanding the players have had with CSA for the last 12 years will come to the end of its four-year cycle in April and fresh negotiations with the players’ union, the South African Cricketers’ Association, are set to start within the next month.

Astonishingly, considering that Cricket Australia spent most of the year trying to ward off a strike by their own players that threatened the Ashes, acting CSA chief executive Thabang Moroe has confirmed that they will be seeking Cricket Australia’s advice in how to contract players.

Cricket Australia received a bloody nose when all their players stood together to stop the administrators from hogging all the new money coming in from the Big Bash, instead ensuring that every state cricketer, both male and female, enjoyed a share of the riches.

It seems only fair that the players should share in the revenue that is accrued mostly due to their talents, but that’s not how Moroe sees things judging by his ill-considered comments just after Christmas about CSA making the money and not the players, who are basically employees who must do what they are told.

For CSA to say they make the money is simply outrageous, considering the amount of money that has been wasted due to their own negligence in the T20 Global League false-start, for which cricket in this country will be paying for a long time.

An antagonistic approach to the players is also extremely shortsighted because there are so many opportunities abroad now for the players, options that will pay up to four times more than they can earn here in South Africa. Many of our top stars are only staying because they feel a responsibility towards the game and for the younger players coming through the system, an attitude that is engendered by the revenue-sharing model that makes them stakeholders in the overall welfare of the sport.

Cricket South Africa are heading for a collision course with their most valuable – and sought-after – assets if the approach so brazenly bellowed out by their leadership is carried into negotiations.

There is a certain old-fashioned naivety about their strident apporoach because they really cannot compete with overseas offers on an economic basis so they really need to keep their players happy.

Similarly, the implication that they will convince the Board of Control for Cricket in India to release their players for the T20 Global League because they will threaten to prevent South African players from participating in the IPL is outlandish. Preventing our best stars from maximising their earnings in the best-paid league in the world will simply chase them away permanently to foreign shores.

A mass exodus of top players would be a disastrous setback for the game, leading to a huge loss in earning from sponsors and broadcasters – the Proteas are currently still an attraction because of the world-class stars they possess – and would ultimately stymie any plans CSA have for the further development of the game.

https://www.pressreader.com/south-africa/the-citizen-gauteng/20180106/282355450131976

All in all, even though people were disappointed with the result, there was a lot to be pleased about in the Springboks’ draw with the Wallabies in Perth last weekend.

To put it into perspective, historically South Africa’s record in Australia is not that good with just 12 wins in 37 matches and only five out of 26 games since 1992, so to get two away points is a good result.

The Springboks will be disappointed, however, that they did not win because they were so dominant in the second half and they had some really clearcut opportunities that they needed to finish.

This Saturday against New Zealand at the North Harbour Stadium will be a real test, but then it always is against the All Blacks. What will really encourage the Springboks leading into that match is their defensive system that meant Australia could only score one try against them in open play, having scored five and then four tries in their two matches against New Zealand.

The Wallabies’ other try in Perth came from a driving maul and the main reason for that was that the Springboks competed at the front of the lineout. It was a high risk/high reward tactic, but with Eben Etzebeth in the air it meant they lost three players to defend on the drive, which is a particularly high-risk strategy five metres from your tryline.

The Springboks were really good in the tackle in Perth and made lots of double hits. They mixed up their defence well: at times they came very hard off the line, for example in the two turnovers Siya Kolisi forced through sheer linespeed; sometimes they were softer in their defensive line, especially on the blindside, where the attack is usually very flat and basically off the scrumhalf, so you just try to shepherd them out towards the touchline.

Once Kolisi managed to jolt the ball loose and that gave Jan Serfontein a clear run for the line but he was held up two metres short, and the other major turnover by the blindside flank came when he forced the error that led to the end of the game.

The Springboks were very good at the breakdown in Perth, and Jaco Kriel and Pieter-Steph du Toit made some really important steals as well.

The Springboks really struggled though with Australia’s obstruction, especially on the kick-chase. When you kick long it is vitally important that your line gets ahead, and stays ahead, of the retreating defenders. The Springboks do generally chase well, but if the opposition can get players in-between the chasers then it allows their back-three player a clear gap and a hole to hit in the line. It’s like obstruction and completely illegal, but someone like Richie McCaw made it an art-form for the All Blacks.

Every bit of momentum the Wallabies had in Perth really came through this. You cannot rush in defence if the attack has momentum, you have to go softer to recover; you try to get them on to the edge of the field and then you can push hard again.

It’s interesting that under Chean Roux last year, South Africa tried to implement the rush-defence, but we all know the problems they had with that system. But I feel their defensive system is very secure this year, you can see the players really back it and believe in it.

The South Africans could have been better organised on the restarts though. They tended to have their wings forward and their pods deeper, but against someone as lethal as Israel Folau, you need the pods to come further forward. But when Folau won the one aerial ball against Courtnall Skosan that led to a try, there was a huge obstruction. If you watch it from behind, Sekope Kepu actually points to Kurtley Beale and tells him where to go, he clearly blocked Etzebeth from making the hit.

Eben obviously has the respect of his team-mates and is leading well, but he is still an inexperienced captain, especially at Test level. That try needed to be reviewed and I’m sure the TMO would have made the right decision; the captain just needed to whisper in the referee’s ear …

I thought the Springbok kicking game was quite good and Elton Jantjies managed to convert a few zones and pin Australia in their 22. The Springboks were quite clever at times by moving the ball wide to Andries Coetzee, which brought Folau up and then they were able to put the ball in behind, which gave the blind wing quite a few problems.

I was really impressed again with Coenie Oosthuizen. Besides anchoring a dominant scrum, he also hasn’t missed a tackle all Championship and he also made three tackles with a broken arm when he came back on to the field!

It just shows the commitment and attitude in the team at the moment, they are really working hard for each other.

I was curious to know how the Springboks would respond to being 10 points down in a Test and the fact that they were able to get back into the game and so nearly won it at the end is a real positive going forward. As is the fact that for long periods their forwards were very dominant at the set-pieces.

We must remember that this is not a team full of 50-Test Springboks – in fact only three players in the starting XV in Perth had more than 30 caps, with two more on the bench – it is a growing team. In the decision-making positions, there is tremendous inexperience and in the spine of the team – hooker, eighthman, scrumhalf, flyhalf and fullback – there was a total of just 34 caps.

So critics of the Perth performance need to take a rain-check and be positive; they must realise that this is a Springbok team that is growing in stature and is unbeaten this year so far.

The All Blacks are probably favourites on Saturday, but in 2012 and 2014 both Tests over there were very close and 2013 was the famous Romain Poite Test with Bismarck, so you can’t really count that. Apart from last year, all our games with New Zealand have been relatively close.

This is a Springbok team in such a good mental space and the All Blacks have alluded to how they can see a brilliant culture in the team and the difference in their defence, as well as the clever bits of play they are producing. They have the deepest respect for this South African team.

The absence of Jaco Kriel will, however, be a big loss for the Springboks, especially against the All Blacks. His pace, dynamism and the way he puts his body on the line without any fear is a huge positive for the team. But it’s a chance for Jean-Luc du Preez to step up and for Siya Kolisi to play at six and for someone new to come on to the bench. Siya is already really forcing a lot of turnovers on the ground.

You have to give credit to the South African coaches, staff and players for how well the Springboks have performed and hopefully they can get a good result on Saturday.

The winner will win the Rugby Championship – it probably is that simple really.

John McFarland is the assistant coach of the Kubota Spears in Japan and was the Springbok defence coach from 2012 through to the 2015 World Cup, where they conceded the least line-breaks in the tournament and an average of just one try per game. Before that, McFarland won three SuperRugby titles (2007, 09, 10) with the Bulls and five Currie Cup crowns with the Blue Bulls. In all, he won 28 trophies during his 12 years at Loftus Versfeld.