Ken Borland

Highly-rated batsman Theunis de Bruyn may have just lost his Proteas contract but the 27-year-old has enough perspective to know there are far more important issues at hand at the moment and he is confident a rotten 2019/20 summer for him personally is just a hiccough in a career that has promised so much.

While the Covid-19 pandemic brought the cricket season to a shocking, sudden halt, De Bruyn feels as if he didn’t really have a cricket season at all. From the time he scored 41 for SA A against India A in Mysore last September, he has batted just 20 times this summer.

His problems started in the Mzansi Super League in November when he was hospitalised with a mystery virus. Then in the Momentum One-Day Cup he had just scored a brilliant 120 against the Lions at Centurion when he tore a hamstring in the field. In his first net practice back, he was coming to the end of his session when he was too early on a pull against Junior Dala and suffered a concussion.

His last innings for the Proteas was back in October in the third Test against India in Ranchi, when, ironically, De Bruyn was the top-scorer as he made 30 out of a dismal total of 133 all out. And now he has lost his national contract.

So the 2019/20 season has exacted a heavy fee on his good humour.

“It was just one of those seasons and I have no answers to the questions why? But we need to put the situation in perspective with what is currently going on: we can’t even play cricket now, businesses are closing and it’s a crazy time. We can only hope this pandemic unites the nation and then we can stand up and rebuild. So we need to take all that on board for perspective.

“But this last season was completely not what I expected, not what I put in all the hard work towards. The current situation is a bit like my season, all questions and no answers. I’ve hardly played this season, it feels like the season never really started for me. I feel a bit forgotten but I just have to take it on the chin because I failed in international cricket. But at the end of the day the passion is still there and I will take on the new season,” De Bruyn told The Citizen on Tuesday.

The Titans star admitted it has been a tough time to get through, but he has already been putting in hard work to ensure he comes back next season as an even better player.

“I’ve figured a few things out as to how I can improve as a cricketer, to become a more complete package physically, mentally and technically. This season has been so tough, but then I had setbacks when I was young, not making a provincial team, and it makes you want to give up and then the next season you have the time of your life.

“I believe I still have a role to play in South African cricket, I still have eight-to-ten years left in my career so there’s still a lot of time. I’m just going to take all the lessons I can from this season. In the few innings I had, I actually felt good and what I have been working on was coming through. It’s the first time I’ve failed in my career but now I can help the Titans rebuild and get better, which is what I love. Plus I have the chance to watch all the cricket highlights on TV that I haven’t had the chance to see before,” De Bruyn said.

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Andile Phehlukwayo turned 20 last week and has already been anointed as a Dolphins bowling all-rounder fit to follow in the footsteps of legends like Shaun Pollock and Lance Klusener, but he has already achieved so much as one of the successes of South African cricket’s development pipeline.

There was clearly something special about Phehlukwayo when he played for the Dolphins in the 2014 Champions League while he was still in his matric year at Glenwood High School. He scored 22 off 17 balls against the powerhouse Chennai Super Kings in his first game and then 37 off just 18 deliveries against the Kolkata Knight Riders.

Since then, his bowling has become his strongest suit, especially in limited-overs matches, and he has produced several match-winning performances for the Dolphins, most notably with his nerveless, skilful death bowling in the RamSlam T20 Challenge playoff against the Cape Cobras.

He certainly does not want to be pigeon-holed, however, as a limited-overs specialist and the work he has been putting into his long-format game is bearing fruit, with Phehlukwayo taking a career-best four for 39 against the Warriors in East London last weekend.

“I was thrown in the deep end playing in the Champions League while I was still at school, which was a tough one, but I’m grateful for the experience and there’s no pressure on me. I’m my own player, different to other all-rounders, but obviously I would like to try and be like guys like Jacques Kallis and Lance Klusener. I need to perform for  SA A first, and there are lots of guys performing as all-rounders in South African cricket, like Chris Morris and David Wiese. I just need to be consistent, I know there will always be chances for me and I believe one day I will play for South Africa, even if maybe not in the next two or four years,” Phehlukwayo says.

The son of a domestic worker in Margate, who earned a hockey scholarship to Glenwood and was then noticed when he went to cricket trials, Phehlukwayo has every reason to be proud of what he has already achieved despite such humble beginnings.

“My big goal is for my mom to come and watch me play. I was fortunate to have good support in the background and my coaches believed in me. For me it’s just about working hard and not giving up on my dream. I never thought that I would be playing franchise cricket at this age and at some stages I thought I would never play professional cricket.

“I’ve made quick progress as a bowler, T20 does fast-track you, you need to adapt quickly in that format and practise your skills. Playing for SA A over the last couple of months, bowling to people like Jos Buttler and Eoin Morgan, taught me that you’ve got to be on-song and stay on your game-plan, back yourself, always believe in yourself. It was definitely an experience I won’t forget, especially bowling a couple of long-hops to Morgan!”

It was hardly confidential that the Bulls were vulnerable in the scrums when they opened their SuperRugby campaign against the Stormers at Newlands, but captain Adriaan Strauss was nevertheless disappointed that his team gave their hosts so much opportunity to dominate that set-piece as they romped to an impressive 33-9 victory.

“The Stormers scrummed well in the second half and we also struggled against the Lions in the latter part of that warm-up game. There are technical things we need to work on and improve, but the coach said before the game that scrummaging would be our challenge and that’s precisely where the Stormers took us on and they won that battle.

“But we didn’t give them that opportunity in the first half, it was a tactical game, there wasn’t much space, a typical, hard South African derby. The Stormers took their opportunities in the second half but we gave them some of those. It’s frustrating because I know the side has got potential, like we showed in the first half, but then we didn’t play to our ability in the second half. Credit to the Stormers for playing very well, but we made silly mistakes at the lineouts and we didn’t apply pressure, giving them easy exits,” hooker Strauss said after the game.

Bulls coach Nollis Marais hinted that the true valuation of his side will only come further down the line, perhaps not even during this year’s SuperRugby competition.

“The match showed how young and inexperienced we are in certain positions. But we need to play these youngsters, they’ll get better every week and will be ready down the line. Otherwise two years from now we will have the same problem. It’s not nice, but we have to stick with it and the guys have to learn. A match like that is not fun, but it’s a good way to learn and the team will grow every week,” Marais said.

“The big question mark was always going to be whether we were under pressure in the set-pieces and the Stormers did that to us in the second half. Eben Etzebeth and Pieter-Steph du Toit showed their class in the lineouts and they had very good substitutions in the scrum. If you don’t win your set-pieces, you can have thousands of plans, but without good scrum or lineout ball, you can’t attack,” the coach added.