Ken Borland

Vernon Philander has never been one to pass the buck, as his tireless work uplifting his community has shown, which is why he has decided to make a comeback to help not just Western Province but South African cricket as a whole.

The great seam bowler’s decision to come out of retirement is great news for Western Province, who will be built around a core of the struggling Cape Cobras side, minus key figures who will be playing for Boland like the Malan brothers, Janneman and Pieter.

But the presence of Philander, who took 224 Test wickets at just 22.32 before retiring in January last year, will also help raise the standard of the new-look domestic game and the 35-year-old said he is wanting to help players from all the teams and not just his own.

“Western Province will have a young squad and there is a big need for me to play a part there, considering I still probably have two or three years left in me and I still have the firepower to perform and do well. But there is also not much experience around the country and I’m looking at the greater picture. We were fortunate to learn from older guys when we started out whether they were in our squad or not.

“So there’s a massive role to play in helping the future generations with those extra learnings, they can tap into our knowledge and hopefully stay calmer for longer. Hopefully I can help make sure they mature in the proper manner. Obviously I am still playing for trophies, but I want to encourage bowlers from other teams to speak to me so I can help South African cricket grow,” Philander told Saturday Citizen on Friday.

While the jury is still out on whether the new domestic system will actually improve South African cricket, Philander said the quality of play locally definitely needed some attention.

“I’ve been having honest chats with a few people and it boils down to standards and whether we are okay with mediocre. I personally don’t think there’s any place for that, so my goal is ultimately to help the standard of cricket in this country by setting a good example and standards. You want an atmosphere of enjoying what you do, but you also have a responsibility to perform,” Philander said.

The new-look team based at Newlands is also likely to feature the returns of batting maestro Hashim Amla and Wayne Parnell, who at 31 years old is still very capable of bringing some all-round magic.

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.

Danie van Tonder has shown his willingness to dare to be different and his commitment to an aggressive approach, and he is not going to change any of that when he tees it up early on Wednesday morning at Huddle Park Golf Club in the first round of the Vodacom Championship Reloaded, the final event of the Rise Up Series he is currently leading.

Van Tonder, given the incredible consistency he has shown in finishing in the top-10 in his last 13 events, dating back a year, will be the favourite in a two-horse race to win the order of merit for the Sunshine Tour’s return-to-play series, with Darren Fichardt trailing the 29-year-old from Copperleaf by more than R37 000.

George Coetzee is third, but is away in Europe, and Ulrich van den Berg is fourth, but nearly R112 000 behind Van Tonder, with the winner of the Vodacom Championship Reloaded taking home R95 100.

“Nothing will change, I’m just carrying on with practising and working hard. I’ve played practice rounds at Huddle Park both yesterday [Monday] and today [Tuesday] and the greens are nice and soft and rolling nicely, so that will suit my aggressive style. I’m going to go flag-hunting, I can hit the ball right at the pin and not worry about it bouncing off the green.

“I don’t mind what anyone else is doing, it’s the same for everyone and I will still just go out there and go for fairways and greens and make as many birdies as I can. There are four par-fives and nine par-fours, so if I can shoot six or seven-under then that will be a good round. It’s quite a nice course because I can hit Driver everywhere,” Van Tonder told The Citizen on Tuesday.

There are many in the local game who see similarities between Van Tonder and Bryson de Chambeau, the U.S. Open champion who is threatening to change the entire sport in ferociously single-minded fashion. The South African, who jokingly points out that he is a couple of years older than De Chambeau so he must have copied him, shares the same stiff-armed swing and unflinchingly aggressive approach with the American.

“I’ve always been happy to do my own thing. My swing is not textbook, so I had a lot of people advising me against pro golf when I started out. As I got better the critics started saying things like, ‘How do you plan on making a living out of golf with a swing like that?’ But luckily I didn’t listen too much. Fortunately I have a little bit of the water-off-a-duck’s-back attitude.”

Given how savagely dominant he has been in the Rise Up Series, there is no need for Van Tonder to change anything. It may be cruel the way he is depriving all the other struggling pros a share of the big prizemoney at the moment, but they can hopefully lift their own games to provide fierce competition in this final event.

The differing domestic circumstances of the Proteas women’s squad meant some of them had done no cricket-related work since the beginning of Lockdown in March when they arrived at their training camp in Pretoria, but coach Hilton Moreeng said on Friday that he is happy with the intensity shown this week.

A high performance squad of 24 was named to gather at the University of Pretoria for a skills-based training camp that ended on Friday. The Proteas were last on a cricket field 143 days previously when they were narrow losers to hosts Australia in the semi-finals of the T20 World Cup.

“The last time we were together was at the World Cup so we needed to get back into the swing of things. The camp went well, even though the environment is now totally different, there’s a new normal, which we realise and are slowly getting used to. We needed to press the reset button and if our tour to England happens in September then we need to know we’re ready and can hit the ground running.

“We needed to see where the players’ skills are. For some of them it was the first time they have picked up a bat since the World Cup because not all of them had the facilities to train properly. But I was very happy with the intensity I saw, that was good to see for our preparation for a possible tour and the upcoming 50-over World Cup. We needed to assess where the squad is and get everyone in the right frame of mind,” Moreeng said on Friday.

Moreeng was assisted by Dillon du Preez, the former Knights pace bowler, and the head coach, who still has to finalise his assistants, said he was impressed by his work.

Proteas vice-captain Chloe Tryon, who has been signed again by the Hobart Hurricanes for the Women’s Big Bash in Australia, said by focusing on the basics she has come out of the week-long camp happy with her progress.

“I just went back to basics in all aspects – batting, bowling and fielding – because it’s been a while since I played. So I just tried to keep it pretty simple and not just jump right in. I wanted to make sure that I mastered that first and my skills are now pretty good,” Tryon said.