Ken Borland

The runs flowed for South African IPL stalwarts Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers and Quinton de Kock in the third week of the tournament, but Kagiso Rabada, the Purple Cap winner in the last edition, has had a drier time of it in terms of wickets this time around.

Kagiso Rabada has now taken just five wickets in six matches and his economy rate is a mediocre 8.72. He conceded 15 runs in the last over of the match against the Hyderabad Sunrisers, allowing the bottom-placed team in the IPL to force a Super Over, which fortunately the Delhi Capitals won. Rabada then took one for 38 in four overs against the Bangalore Royal Challengers, having to contend with AB de Villiers in full flow and conceding 22 runs in the 10 balls he bowled to his compatriot. Rabada then conceded 18 runs off the penultimate over against the Kolkata Knight Riders, finishing with none for 31 in his four overs.

AB de Villiers continues to make life easy for the IPL advertisers by producing a spectacular innings practically every week. This time it was the high-flying Delhi Capitals who suffered under his brilliance, De Villiers scoring an explosive 75 not out off 42 balls as the Bangalore Royal Challengers won by just one run. His other scores were 4 (9) and 3 (9), but De Villiers did become far and away the fastest to 5000 IPL career runs during his blitz against Delhi, needing just 3288 balls to reach the landmark. David Warner was second quickest on 3554 deliveries.

Faf du Plessis is batting with incredible consistency for the Chennai Super Kings, scoring two more half-centuries this week, giving him three in a row in this year’s IPL. He followed up his match-winning 95 not out off just 60 balls last week against Kolkata, with 50 off 41 balls versus Bangalore and 56 (38) against Hyderabad, against whom he also took an incredible catch, running and diving on the boundary. With these performances, the 36-year-old is showing the Proteas should definitely take him to the T20 World Cup in India later this year.

The Mumbai Indians were perhaps trying to send a message to the under-performing Quinton de Kock when they included Australian Nathan Coulter-Nile as one of their four overseas players in their last game against Rajasthan Royals, but De Kock responded with a man of the match display, firing an unbeaten 70 off just 50 balls to lead his team to victory. De Kock had scored just 47 runs off 54 deliveries in four innings before that.

David Miller has been peacefully finishing innings for the Rajasthan Royals in the last week, scoring an unbeaten 24 not out off 23 balls against Kolkata and seven not out off four deliveries versus Mumbai.

Chris Morris may not have batted for the Rajasthan Royals in the last week, but he has shown just how effective a bowler he is both up front and at the death. He was superb in the closing overs against Kolkata, taking four for 14 in his last two overs and winning the man of the match award for his overall figures of four for 23 in four overs. He then took two for 33 in four overs against Mumbai.

Imran Tahir is the sort of person who will still behave like an absolute angel even if he is just in the squad carrying drinks, but this week he finally got a game for the Chennai Super Kings and he took the chance with both hands, taking two for 16 in four impressive overs against Bangalore.

Lungi Ngidi also played one game for Chennai this week and took two for 35 in four overs against Hyderabad Sunrisers, dismissing half-centurions and international T20 batsmen in David Warner and Manish Pandey, helping his team to a seven-wicket win and top of the log.

Marco Jansen (Mumbai) and Anrich Nortje (Delhi) did not play in the last week.

Tens of thousands of people will probably die tragically of Covid in India over the next week, which should give all South African sports fans pause to think as we clamour for the return of spectators to stadiums.

The daily death toll from the pandemic climbed to over 3600 in India this week, with at least 300 000 positive tests per day.

Having been to India three times, it is the country that most reminds me of our poorer communities, the places at the wrong end of the most unequal society in the world, and I cannot but imagine what might happen here if another wave of Covid strikes during winter.

The sudden resurgence of Covid in India has been partly attributed to the government allowing a series of mass nationalistic or religious gatherings, that rapidly became super-spreader events in the populous country.

So one can understand government’s caution when it comes to allowing spectators back into stadiums for rugby or football or any other sporting event. I thought Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa gave a very reasonable explanation on Friday for why there has been no date set yet for the return of fans.

“In terms of fans, we have to look at the codes’ plans from a health perspective. It’s not up to the Minister of Sport, we are not going to decide as individual departments. The National Command Council weekly meeting guides society as a whole, not just one aspect. Our medical advisors are telling us that between May and July there is the possibility of a third wave.

“They say we are facing a storm and we can’t just kill people by allowing them back into stadiums. So each sport has to put together a plan. For example rugby has proposed 50% capacity for the British and Irish Lions tour, which will be looked into. But if the FNB Stadium has capacity of 90 000, that means 45 000 people and how do we ensure that does not become a super-spreader event?” Mthethwa said.

Of course all rugby fans want crowds to be able to watch the Lions matches and recreate the sort of atmosphere that electrified proceedings when Tendai Mtawarira began dismantling the legendary Phil Vickery in the scrums at Kings Park or when Jaque Fourie squeezed over for his improbable try at Loftus Versfeld the last time Britain and Ireland’s finest toured here in 2009.

But is it worth tens of thousands of people dying? Even though SA Rugby’s budget will take a severe knock without crowds, it is not worth mass mortalities.

I would postulate that once spectators are allowed at sporting events again, they will return in their flocks because of how long they have been starved of live action. Perhaps club rugby, generally played in wide open areas, would be a good place to start safely bringing crowds back?

And club rugby will be returning shortly.

It is a level of the game that has been treated quite curtly by some professional coaches, but it was pleasing to hear Bulls coach Jake White, ever the traditionalist, say he will be keeping an eye on club rugby in the Pretoria region to see if there are any hidden gems who have the aptitude for franchise rugby.

He has shown his backing for club rugby by allocating each of his 45 contracted professional players to a club and, if they are not selected for the Bulls, they are expected to play for their clubs (although this won’t apply to the Springboks). White has made a rule that players will wear their club socks once a week at Bulls training and once a month they will come to Loftus Versfeld in their club kit, as well as actually go to their clubs periodically to help with training or social functions.

Resurrecting club rugby as a factory for the professional game would be a great gift for rugby in this country.

Cricket in South Africa was facing an apocalyptic scenario which the acceptance of an independent majority board has now averted, Dr Stavros Nicolaou, the chairman of the Interim Board, said on Friday.

The details of that new board, to be elected at the AGM to be held no later than June 12, were revealed by Nicolaou at a joint briefing with the Minister of Sport and the Members Council at Cricket South Africa’s offices on Friday.

The new board will comprise 15 directors for the next three years, after which it will be reduced to 13 directors. The 15-strong board will be made up of eight independent directors, five non-independent and the two CSA executives – the CEO and the chief financial officer.

The eight independent directors will be nominated by a six-strong panel comprising representatives from the Institute of Directors, SAICA, the Legal Practices Council, a Members Council nominee, a SACA nominee with previous international cricket experience, and the former CSA presidents have also appointed a representative. Applications for independent directors will begin afresh and close on May 10.

“Cricket was at the edge of the cliff, we were millimetres away, not even centimetres. And it was a very steep cliff and not an easy climb back up, almost an apocalyptic scenario. Sponsors and staff were getting nervous, the country at large too. Cricket needs certainty and predictability, that’s what the players want too. The new MoI is a world-class document and a source of great pride.

“An independent majority board is standard practice, Governance 101, and the chairperson must be independent as well, with all 15 directors voting for one of the eight independent directors. The MoI also makes clear the different roles and responsibilities of the Board and the Members Council because there has been a lot of criticism over cricket having two centres of power,” Nicolaou said.

While Minister of Sport Nathi Mthethwa tried to portray his relationship with the Members Council as being vaguely affectionate, he made clear how strongly he disapproved of their leadership of the game, while also firing another warning shot at Sascoc for them not to get involved again.

“This six-month process was all about staying with the status quo or transforming, and we made it clear we wanted transformation, nothing else. It was a matter of life and death for cricket and those who think they can stand against this process must think again. We need to create a space in which sponsors can be comfortable so they can support sport.

“There is no way this process is going back and it sets a good precedent, not a bad one. Government is reluctant to get into the fray, we try to stay at arm’s length from our sporting codes and we believed CSA itself should be able to resolve their issues. But they made it worse and cricket was going down the drain. Sport being run by sport people, what has it brought?” Mthethwa said.

South African rugby fans can rest easy that the four Rainbow Cup franchises won’t merely be going through the motions in yet another tournament of local derbies when the new competition kicks off on Saturday, with the massive incentive of a place in the European Champions Cup possibly being up for grabs.

Talks are apparently underway for the winners of Rainbow Cup SA to be given a spot in the 2021/22 European Rugby Heineken Champions Cup. That prestigious and lucrative tournament has prizemoney of about one million euro for the champions – the equivalent of nearly R17.5 million, which would be a huge boost for any of South Africa’s franchises given the constrained economic outlook for rugby in this country.

The Champions Cup brings together the 20 top teams from the three major European leagues – the English Premiership, France’s Top 14 and the Celtic Pro14, in which the four South African franchises are scheduled to appear later this year.

Conquering Europe may be as ambitious a plan as some of astronautics’ efforts to land on Mars but the rewards are great and will be worth the immense planning and effort. One of the things that will be required is larger squads and talks are already underway with SA Rugby for them to increase the 45-player limit for franchise squads.

Bulls coach Jake White is certainly in favour of further expansion into Europe.

“Hopefully something will be formalised because we want to take part in the Heineken Cup. There are massive incentives to play in that tournament and I remember when I coached Montpellier, the French clubs put a lot of pressure on you to qualify for that event. The importance was shown when Leinster played Munster in the Rainbow Cup last weekend and rested 13 players because they have a Champions Cup semi-final this weekend,” White said on Friday.

“Leinster have used 57 players this season in all competitions and so we’ll try and find out from SA Rugby if we can have bigger squads and more money because it’s important we get the same resources as those European clubs. If we lose players to the Springboks and get a couple of injuries, will we be strong enough to compete at three levels – Currie Cup, Pro14 and Europe?”