Ken Borland

The Proteas leave for India and their five-match T20 series on Wednesday morning relieved that Cricket South Africa’s office politics, which threatened the careers of their coach and former director of cricket, have now seemingly come to an end, according to captain Temba Bavuma.

Proteas head coach Mark Boucher’s position was under immense scrutiny as he was accused of racist conduct, while director of cricket Graeme Smith faced the same charges. An independent tribunal cleared Smith and CSA then withdrew their charges against Boucher, admitting there was no evidence to support their case.

Bavuma said he hoped the off-field saga that had raged above their heads was done and dusted.

“I think there’s a lot of relief in the whole cricket fraternity that these off-field issues have been resolved and put to bed,” Bavuma said on Tuesday. “Hopefully we can now focus on what happens on the field.

“We should all invest as much as we can into that now. I think we handled the situation as a team as best we could. We’ve had many conversations over the months to make sure everyone is in the right space.

“We wanted to make sure there were no underlying issues between players or management, and I think those conversations really helped,” Bavuma said.

To add to their contentment, South Africa are going into the series with several players having performed extremely well in the just-completed Indian Premier League. None more so than David Miller, who helped steer the Gujarat Titans to the title in their first season, his exceptional finishing displays seeing him end the tournament with a strike-rate of 142 and an average of 68.

Where Miller is going to bat for the Proteas is going to be an interesting decision for Bavuma and Boucher.

“It’s always good having guys in form and David lifting the IPL trophy means he’ll bring good confidence into the team and it would have done a world of good for his own confidence,” Bavuma said.

“He performed exceedingly well and whatever feelings of insecurity he might have, he has never expressed those type of feelings to me. He’s an integral part of the Proteas team.

“We trust those sort of performances will continue well into the future. There’s always the conversation about him batting for longer, but he understands where he fits in in our team.

“But if he feels he can add more value in a different position then we can have that conversation. There’s no way we would stifle or restrict any of our players, we want to try set up and assist all of them to perform their best,” Bavuma said.

Kagiso Rabada endured a 39-month break between five-wicket hauls before taking five for 34 on Saturday to wrap up an innings win for the Proteas in the first Test against the West Indies, but the fast bowler said even though he was relieved to end that dry spell, the failure to notch the statistical landmark was not frustrating for him.

“Cricket is a game where you’re measured by the highest accolades like scoring hundreds or taking five and 10-fors, so you always strive to do that, but it’s not like you’re looking for that or desperate for it because sometimes you can bowl really well and not get any wickets. It’s an old cliché but they do tend to repeat themselves.

“Unfortunately I haven’t been able to do the five-for thing for the last couple of years but I knew I just had to be consistent in my preparation. But I am quite relieved to get it, it’s like scoring a hundred, who wouldn’t be happy? I was really glad with my performance, but without the support of my team-mates this wouldn’t have happened.

“With Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje bowling exceptionally well and the batsmen coming to the party and putting runs on the board, this makes it easier for me. I just try and control what I can control and the cricketing gods were smiling at me today,” Rabada said after his 10^th five-wicket haul in just 46 Tests.

He is the seventh South African to join that club and he said the Proteas, by returning to basics and playing as a team, were ruthless as they battered the West Indies into submission.

“This game can be unforgiving but we have just tried to be consistent in our preparation and we’ve established how we want to play. And we stick to that. And if you do that then luck tends to be on your side more often than not. In previous games we were probably lacking in important periods, we let the game slip away. We would be good in patches and at other times quite sloppy.

“We’ve identified the moments in the past when we slackened off and in this Test we kept our foot on the throttle. We are a young team, we are rebuilding, and we will take a lot of confidence from this performance. We must keep building on what we have established in this Test and we will stick to our processes and not take anything for granted,” Rabada said.

Quinton de Kock’s five weeks away from cricket – during which time he was relieved of the national captaincy – will come to an end at the Wanderers on Tuesday and both the Proteas and the Titans will be hoping he burns as brightly as magnesium oxide in the final round of Four-Day Franchise Series matches against the Imperial Lions.

De Kock looked in desperate need of a break when he was dismissed for  duck in the second innings of the second Test in Pakistan on February 8, and he no doubt enjoyed all the fresh air and the miles of beaches near his George home when he returned to South Africa.

But it has not been all easy living for the 28-year-old since his last match, with Titans coach Mandla Mashimbyi revealing on Monday that De Kock has been working hard in the nets as he prepares to return to action as the Titans look to nail down their place in the four-day final. The Proteas coaching staff will also be watching because Pakistan will be back here in April for ODI and T20 series.

“Quinny has been lively and he looks happy to be back. He’s been working hard in the nets and has been hitting balls for days. He looks very hungry to do something for the team,” Mashimbyi told The Citizen.

The presence of De Kock, as well as another international wicketkeeper/batsman in Heinrich Klaasen, significantly boosts the Titans batting line-up and there will be white-hot action in store as Kagiso Rabada spearheads the Lions attack.

Rabada’s Proteas new-ball partner Lungi Ngidi is not quite over the knee niggle he picked up in the closing stages of the T20 competition in Durban, so the Titans attack should be much the same to the one that played against the Knights last week.

The Wanderers pitch was the subject of much debate last week as Dolphins left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj recorded the second-best figures ever at the famous ground, his 13 for 174 being second only to Rabada’s 14 for 105 against the KZN side in 2014/15, but Wandile Gwavu, the Lions coach, said the wicket was a good one and he expects the same sort of surface for this game.

“It offered a little bit of turn and Keshav was always going to find it, he once again showed why he is the country’s No.1 spinner, although we should have played him better. But it also offered a lot for the seamers and was good for batting once you got in, and there was a bit of rough on the fourth day.

“This pitch looks very similar, so it should be an evenly-balanced game, although there is a crack or two that could open up in the heat, even though there is a lot of grass covering,” Gwavu said.

While the Titans, who are 14.16 points ahead of the Warriors, are the favourites to win Pool B, the other pool is coming down to the most thrilling of conclusions with the Knights, who visit the Cape Cobras, just 1.16 points ahead of the Dolphins, who travel to play the Warriors.

The two pool winners will contest the final from March 25.

As rugby’s return-to-play has shown, getting teams to gel takes time and the Proteas are just relieved that it has finally been confirmed that they will at least have some domestic action starting on November 2 before they are flung back into the international arena.

South Africa last took the field on March 7 when they completed a 3-0 ODI sweep over Australia in Potchefstroom and it seems likely that they will host England in white-ball internationals in November. The 50-over world champions have enjoyed a full northern summer of action, however, while the only play available to the Proteas has been for those in the IPL.

But Cricket South Africa finally confirmed on Friday that domestic cricket will resume from November 2 with the Four-Day Franchise Series. Due to necessary cutbacks, the format has changed with the six teams split into two pools. Within their own pool, a franchise will play each team home and away, and then play the three sides in the other group once each, either home or away. It means the number of four-day games has been cut from 10 per franchise to seven, although there will be a final at the end of it all.

The Momentum One-Day Cup, which runs from January 8 to February 12, will be played under the same format, while the CSA T20 Challenge which ends the season will be played over a single round of five matches per franchise, followed by a final.

Proteas spinner Tabraiz Shamsi said on Friday that he was just happy to be able to get out on to the field and have some match practice before their international commitments resume.

“At least there will be cricket and we now have the fixtures and we won’t just have to rock up and play England or whoever else they have lined up for us. We’re very happy to now have certainty because you can train as much as you want but you can’t gauge where you’re at in the nets and the stakes are low at practice. At least we now know we’ll have some domestic fixtures before any potential international matches.

“There will still be mistakes when we play for the Proteas, but at least we’ll now have time to see what we’re not doing right. We won’t just be practising. I’m just happy that we now have some games because obviously there has been a lot going on with Covid-19, and we can’t be too picky. Any cricket is good and playing seven matches instead of 10 is better than nothing,” Shamsi told Saturday Citizen on Friday.

The Lions start the defence of their four-day title with a match against the fast-improving Dolphins in Durban from November 2-5, while Shamsi’s Titans side travel to Cape Town to take on the Cobras at the same time.

The bookmakers would probably fancy the Titans, last year’s runners-up, to have the slightly easier pool as they play the Cobras and Warriors home and away in the first four rounds. They then play the Dolphins at home before their crunch game against the Lions is at the Wanderers, from December 20-23. That is the penultimate round of fixtures, with the final round starting on February 18.

“In international cricket, you play the same guys all the time, but it will be funny playing just the Cobras and Warriors in the first four rounds. I guess if I’m bowling well then you wouldn’t want to keep playing against them because they could get used to my bowling. But all the teams are probably pretty balanced and there have been so many changes in personnel before this season.

“I can’t remember so many player movements before, so no-one really knows how strong or weak the various teams are. It’s going to be a bit of a lottery and it’s going to take a while to figure out the different match-ups in domestic cricket,” Shamsi said.