Ken Borland

The Sharks made a painfully slow start to their Rainbow Cup match against the Stormers in Cape Town at the weekend, which did not please coach Sean Everitt at all, but he was happy that his team showed the character to win in the end.

The Sharks were 17-0 down after 12 minutes but eventually triumphed 33-30 and were helped by the Stormers having to play with 14 men for 40 minutes due to two red cards (with replacements allowed after 20 minutes under the new trial laws) and 13 men for 10 minutes. The first of those red cards came in the 13^th minute when wing Seabelo Senatla clumsily upended fullback Aphelele Fassi in the air.

“Obviously we’re not happy with the performance but we’ll take the result and I guess it’s the sign of a good team that you can win when you haven’t played well. Thanks to our conditioning I thought we did really well at the end, especially in stopping their driving mauls. In the last 20 minutes we just could not get out of our 22, we just didn’t have possession.

“It was not the performance we wanted, but the positive is that the guys showed character, work-rate and effort. What was really pleasing is that we are not a team that gives up. The guys found a way to win and at times we moved the ball really nicely. We knew it would be an uphill battle against the Stormers with all their Springboks, but we need to be better,” was Everitt’s frank assessment after the game.

The hard slog for the Sharks began in the lineouts and they also conceded too many penalties. But the new trial laws allowing the Stormers to replace their red-carded players after 20 minutes most certainly kept the home side in the game. Although the new rules made his life harder, Everitt said he supported the change in regulations.

“It’s always tough for the spectacle when there’s an early red card and what Senatla did was not intentional, probably just careless, it was not malicious at all. Fortunately Aphelele was not injured. I think it’s a good idea that a team can change their red-carded players after 20 minutes,” Everitt said.

Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers showed they might just be the tonic for the struggling Proteas T20 team with their brilliant batting in the second week of the Indian Premier League.

The cricketing gifts of AB de Villiers are considered in India to be as sacred as myrrh and the 37-year-old was at his plundering best this week when he slammed 76 not out off just 34 balls for the Bangalore Royal Challengers against the Kolkata Knight Riders, winning the man of the match award. And then nah, the Royal Challengers did not need him to bat in their next match as they thrashed the Rajasthan Royals by 10 wickets.

Faf du Plessis is opening the batting for the Chennai Super Kings and has been building up over the two weeks of the tournament and is now in full flow. After his duck in the opening match, Du Plessis sauntered to 36 not out off 33 balls as Chennai chased just 107 against the Punjab Kings with ease, was then more explosive with his 33 off 17 deliveries versus Rajasthan and then he struck a ferocious 95 not out off just 60 balls to set up victory over Kolkata.

Kagiso Rabada has not been the same wicket-taking force he was last year when he was the IPL’s leading wicket-taker and he has not been particularly economical either. The fast bowler took one for 43 in four overs against Punjab and one for 25 in three overs versus the Mumbai Indians, and now has overall figures of four wickets for 98 runs in 11 overs.

Lungi Ngidi returned to being one of the Chennai Super Kings’ family’s favourite sons when he returned to IPL action this week with outstanding figures of three for 28 in four overs against Kolkata. Two of those wickets, including the scalp of the dangerous Dinesh Karthik for 40 off 24 balls, came in successive overs, the 15^th and 17^th, as KKR fell 18 runs short in their chase.

Chris Morris, the most expensive player in the IPL auction, bowled well to take two for 33 in four overs against Chennai, but then conceded 38 runs in three overs as Bangalore hammered Rajasthan by 10 wickets. Morris was not able to repeat his heroics with the bat in the first week, scoring a two-ball duck against CSK and 10 off 7 deliveries versus RCB.

Troubles still seem to weigh heavily on Quinton de Kock as he scored a sluggish 40 off 39 balls for Mumbai against Hyderabad Sunrisers and then two off four deliveries versus Delhi Capitals, following his 2 (6) in the first week.

David Miller’s showings in the IPL so far accurately reflect the ins and outs of the middle-order batsman’s lot in T2 cricket: Lauded in the first week for his 62 off 43 balls that set up an unlikely victory for Rajasthan against Delhi, this week he has been out for 2 (5) and 0 (2).

Marco Jansen has not played since appearing and impressing in the Mumbai Indians’ first two games, but the 20-year-old is adding a ton of experience to his resume just being in the defending champions’ camp.

Anrich Nortje and the experienced Imran Tahir are yet to play for the Delhi Capitals and Chennai Super Kings respectively.

Pakistan-bound Janneman Malan and Nandre Burger showed important signs of hot form as they led the Cape Cobras to a vital 76-run win over the Imperial Lions in their Momentum One-Day Cup match in Potchefstroom on Friday.

The victory keeps the Cape Cobras alive in the competition and their match against the Warriors on Saturday will decide who goes through to the semi-finals with the Lions, who were already guaranteed first place on the log and rested some key players.

Malan and debutant Burger have both been included in the Proteas squad for the T20 series in Pakistan that starts on February 11.

Opening batsman Malan blazed 95 off 97 balls to lead the Cobras to a formidable 284 for five, with brother Pieter scoring 53 in a first-wicket stand of 131 with the Protea. A run-a-ball 40 from captain Zubayr Hamza and the talented Jonathan Bird’s 50 not out off 47 balls added the finishing touches to the innings.

Left-arm spinner Bjorn Fortuin, who is also heading for Pakistan, continued his fine tournament as he was the pick of the Lions bowlers with two for 42 in nine overs.

Left-arm quick Burger then had the Lions under pressure from the outset with a feisty new-ball burst in which he also swung the ball, bowling Reeza Hendricks (another T20 squad member but sadly out of form) for just 6 with a beauty.

Burger deserved much better than his final figures of two for 51 in nine overs, and seamer Onke Nyaku then built on the pressure created with some outstanding bowling of his own to take four for 29 in 10 overs as the Lions were bowled out for 208, giving the Cobras a bonus point which puts them level-pegging with the Warriors on the log.

Fortuin lashed 39 off 29 balls and Eldred Hawken scored a run-a-ball 37, but they were ancillary efforts as by then the required run-rate was almost 10 runs-per-over and the Lions were seven down. Nicky van den Bergh was the only other batsman to threaten the Cobras as he scored 35.

Lanky off-spinner Imraan Manack played a good supporting tole to the Cobras seamers as he took two for 31 in 7.4 overs.

Lions coach Ivan van Rooyen said he was terribly disappointed by their narrow defeat to the Sharks in Durban but proud of his team for the character they showed and the big improvement in competitiveness compared to their dismal start to the year.

The Lions went down 16-19 to the Sharks in their opening Super Rugby Unlocked match, but they turned down a penalty that could have given them a draw to rather go for a win, only to be penalised at a five-metre scrum after the hooter. But having won just one of their six games in the regular Super Rugby season, to then push the form side in South Africa all the way to the end was heartening, especially after a poor start in which the Sharks led 13-0 after half-an-hour.

“Obviously we’re bitterly disappointed to lose, but the character and fight for the whole 80 minutes the guys showed was unbelievable. So I’m happy with the effort but sad about the result. The Sharks obviously started well and put us under pressure, but we had a bit of hope and momentum going into the second half, we felt that shift.

“Being direct had started to work and the Sharks live on turnovers so that’s what we wanted to negate. So there were a lot of positives, especially the good fight and character the guys showed for 80 minutes, and a lot of individuals put up their hands. We want to challenge the players to adapt to different opponents and we had a specific plan for tonight,” Van Rooyen said after the game.

Lions captain Elton Jantjies also pointed to the big improvement in performance by the side.

“Tonight was probably a 7/10 for us in terms of performance, and that’s coming from a 3/10. So we will just keep training hard and believe, to only lose by three points here shows that we are doing the right things,” Jantjies said.

Neither Van Rooyen nor Jantjies were throwing their toys out of the pram over the final penalty at the scrum that cost the Lions. The Sharks had been under pressure for most of the game in that set-piece, but had also won a couple of penalties earlier in the match.

“The Sharks obviously have a quality front row and I felt we handled them adequately. Obviously there are one or two scrums we will look at again, but generally I felt the scrums went well. The scrum was a good battle, some of them we dominated, but there’s still a bit for us to work on,” Van Rooyen said.

“Both sides had opportunities to win the game and we scored one try each. I had a penalty against the posts, but that happens in rugby. There were other moments at the set-piece that were crucial as well,” Jantjies said.