Ken Borland

Rain once again killed the action after England reached 37 without loss midway through the sixth over in the first NatWest One-Day International against South Africa at Sophia Gardens in Cardiff on Friday.

6th over – Clever batting now by Ian Bell as he steps outside off stump and flicks a shortish delivery from Lonwabo Tsotsobe over short fine leg for four.

5th over – Superb batting in the final batting powerplay over by Bell as he continues to come down the pitch, heaving Morne Morkel over midwicket for six and then driving him classically over long-off for another maximum.

4th over – Alastair Cook starts the next over in style as he drives Tsotsobe beautifully through the covers for four. Bell then comes down the pitch and drives the left-arm seamer sweetly over mid-off for another boundary.

3rd over – England are struggling to score and Cook pushes Morkel straight down the pitch and sets off for a suicidal single. Wayne Parnell gathers the ball just behind the bowler’s wicket, but his wild throw results in an astonishing run out miss from no more than five metres away with all three stumps to aim at! Cook was miles out and gets a major let-off before he had scored.

1st over – Play finally gets underway after a delay of four-and-three-quarter hours with a 24-overs-a-side match. Morkel’s first ball is a wide outside off stump and then the rain returns. There is another delay of nine minutes and an over is lost, reducing the game to 23 overs-a-side. Morkel completes his over well, not conceding another run.

South Africa player ratings

Graeme Smith – 8

The South African captain once again provided immense substance at the top of the order. His unorthodox strokeplay drove England to distraction and he was solid in trying conditions.

Alviro Petersen – 7

Starting to feel comfortable at international level; a solid series highlighted by his epic, stoic 182 at Headingley after missing out on the Oval run-fest.

Hashim Amla – 9

As reliable and elegant as always, his 311* at the Oval will be remembered forever. When his team were under pressure at Lord’s, he responded with another fine century.

Jacques Kallis – 7

Never failed to impress whether it was in scoring his wonderful, series-defining century at the Oval, making vital breakthroughs with the ball or taking superb catches in the slips.

AB de Villiers – 6

Three 40s suggest there may have been too much of a load on him being asked to keep wicket as well. Reliable with the gloves, but his focus is surely on scoring big hundreds.

Jacques Rudolph – 6

Although he has still not cemented himself at number six, his battling efforts at Headingley and Lord’s were crucial for victory.

JP Duminy – 7

Batted beautifully and with an air of assurance that he has not had for a while. Possibly moved himself ahead of Rudolph in the queue with his defiant efforts down the order.

Vernon Philander – 8

Starred with bat and ball at Lord’s after chipping in with a couple of wickets in each of the first two Tests. His unerring line and length did not bring as much reward as it could have … until Lord’s where he showed what all the fuss was about.

Dale Steyn – 8

Another whose efforts did not always bring the reward they deserved, but he showed his class at the Oval. The leader of the attack even if he didn’t take the new ball and tremendously skilful and fiery.

Morne Morkel – 7

England’s batsmen were kept on their toes when he hit his straps – his pace, bounce and aggression meant they were continually under pressure.

Imran Tahir – 5

Stopped some threatening England lower-order rallies with important wickets, but is still in the developmental stage of his international career. A lack of control at times arrested his ability to build pressure.

Highlights of the series

Kevin Pietersen – The only England batsmen capable of turning a dodgy position at Headingley into a situation where the hosts could be the only winners. The only person capable of sowing such discontent that his international career was seemingly over straight after that innings.

Vernon Philander’s dream day – Philander had an outstanding fourth day at Lord’s. He had been joint top-scorer with Duminy in the first innings and South Africa had been reduced to 282 for seven in their second innings, a lead of just 276, when he scored a crucial 35 to take the target well beyond 300. Philander then claimed two quick wickets to fatally undermine England’s chase.

Oval heroics – There have been many great batting line-ups that have taken on England, but in 924 Tests they had never conceded successive double-century partnerships until Kallis and Amla put on an unbeaten 377 for the third wicket, following the 259 for the second wicket between Smith and Amla. A pitch that had been seemingly flat was then transformed as Dale Steyn took three for eight after lunch on the final day to set up a crushing innings win.

There are many cases of highly-successful players then becoming triumphant coaches, but not many can claim to have reached the pinnacle of their sport mentoring two such vastly different teams as Gary Kirsten has.

As a player, Kirsten was one of the most effective opening batsmen of the 1990s and early 2000s, as 7289 Test runs at 45.27 and 6798 ODI runs at 40.95 attest.

But he really became a legend of the game when he took over as the coach of a seriously-talented but under-performing Indian team.

Despite having no top-level coaching experience before that daunting assignment, Kirsten managed to get a group of celebrity cricketers, under the biggest burden of expectation in the game, playing consistently as a winning unit.

Under Kirsten, India won the World Cup on home soil and reached the number one Test ranking.

Now South Africa have also scaled the Test peak and top the rankings after their 2-0 series victory in England.

Apart from the talent and the expectation (admittedly at a much lower level of intensity), South Africa are a very different team to India.

Even Jacques Kallis, arguably the greatest all-rounder to grace the game, does not have the same cult status of a Sachin Tendulkar, Virender Sehwag or Rahul Dravid.

The team ethos is drummed into South Africans from a young age and with it comes a conservative approach, a fear of failure and a great work ethic when it comes to things like fitness and nets.

Being an individual is almost frowned upon; the whole team must be treated the same.

But Kirsten has begun dismantling these long-held beliefs. Eyebrows were raised when South Africa spent time in the Alps with explorer Mike Horn rather than arrive earlier in England for more match practice.

And those same eyebrows were in orbit when Kirsten said practice the day before the crucial Lord’s Test was optional.

It’s not that the 44-year-old does not believe in preparation. He swears by it.

It’s just that Kirsten realised a long time ago – during his lengthy playing career – that everyone is different and requires different preparation. At the elite level, most of this preparation is mental anyway.

“We will focus on our preparation and the work that we do. We always respect the opposition and we understand we are playing against quality teams. We will never underestimate any side, we will never go into any Test match complacent and arrive thinking the job is done.

“We will do the preparation necessary to look at the opposition and what they have got in their team and how we can exploit certain areas,” Kirsten assured the media in London before the battle for the number one ranking reached its climax.

South Africa have been number one before, of course, briefly in 2009 after winning in Australia, but, according to captain Graeme Smith, they now have the maturity to try and hang on to the top spot for longer.

“Having touched it before, I think we have learned some lessons. I can’t predict what will happen, but we are pretty humble. I don’t think there will be any flashiness from our guys.

“There will be lots of hard work and with the type of people we have around our group, if we do lose this it won’t be because of our attitudes,” Smith said.

Words like “humble”, “no flashiness”, “hard work” and “attitude” have been used many times to describe Kirsten and the coach has made it clear that he wants to change the players as people as much as cricketers.

Kirsten believes it is vital for his players to have perspective – that real life extends far beyond the cricket field (this, of course, can make it easier to handle those inaptly named “life-or-death” moments in the game).

But he also insists that players have to take personal responsibility within the team unit.

Although the technical knowledge of Kirsten has been refined on the biggest stage, it is the man-management skills of the Capetonian that set him apart.

The failures and the disappointments are dealt with quickly and then forgotten; the blame game is never played; and the talk in the changeroom is always of the positive and what the team has already achieved.

The mental freshness of the squad is also one of the key factors Kirsten won’t compromise.

Allan Donald, the bowling coach, was allowed to leave the New Zealand tour earlier this year to spend time with the family, while avid surfer Paddy Upton, the mental conditioning coach with India but now the performance director with South Africa, was allowed some leave from the England tour in order to chase the waves in the remote oceans around Indonesia.

The same principle was in play when the players were told nets were optional.

In the thrilling final stages of the Test at Lord’s, when England made it clear that they were not going to relinquish the number one ranking without a huge fight, it was the mental state of the South African team that mattered most.

With Matt Prior throwing down the gauntlet in marvellous fashion, South Africa showed no signs of the “choking” ailment that has dogged them in the past.

Far from ignoring the unwanted tag, Kirsten dealt with it head-on during the time in Switzerland with Horn, one of the most inspirational people on the planet.

By being put in real life-threatening situations on the glaciers of the Alps, South Africa’s cricketers learnt a huge amount about their own abilities to handle pressure.

Mentally, the Lord’s thriller was like a stroll in the park compared to some of the adventures Horn has introduced to them.

Women’s Day – and it’s motto: “you strike a woman, you strike a rock” – is all about celebrating the courage and strength of women in South Africa and, in cricketing terms, Elise Lombard was the very epitome of those words.

Elise was the guest speaker at Cricket South Africa’s Women’s Day celebration on August 8 and spoke with great passion about the game she served so well for over 30 years.

So it was with great shock and sadness that the South African cricket fraternity learnt of Elise’s passing the next day, ironically on Women’s Day, which is meant to celebrate heroines exactly like her.

What set Elise apart as the CEO of Titans and Northerns cricket was her ability to combine a gentle, caring touch with tremendous leadership skills, business acumen and organisational excellence.

Although her shock passing will forever taint the memory of that day, CSA’s 2012 Women’s Day function was meant to be a celebration and what a party it was!

CSA has retained a wonderful team spirit and the female staff were able to let their hair down in a series of challenges involving dancing and singing.

National women’s captain Mignon du Preez has a lot on her plate at the moment ahead of the ICC Women’s T20 in Sri Lanka, but she took time out to report back on the team’s preparations, which have been nothing short of exhaustive.

South Africa have been drawn in the same group as hosts Sri Lanka, New Zealand and the West Indies, but Du Preez said her team’s confidence has been boosted by their recent series against world leaders England and the England Academy.

Women’s cricket has unfairly been dubbed as “butch” in the past, but Du Preez, alongside the likes of Dane van Niekerk, Yolandi van der Westhuizen and Shandre Fritz, showed the glamorous, athletic side of the sport.

“There’s not that much awareness about women’s cricket and there’s a misperception, people think you have to be butch to play cricket. But cricket is for any girls – and pretty ones too!” the petite Du Preez smiled.

The rise of the women’s game in South Africa is something Elise Lombard was fully behind. The game of cricket would be much the poorer if it weren’t for the contribution of all the wonderful women who add so much.