Ken Borland

In a very important development for South African hockey, the FIH Women’s Junior World Cup will be hosted by the North-West University in Potchefstroom from December 5-16.

But this is not just an historic landmark for South Africa but Africa as a whole, because it is the first hockey world cup at any level to played on the continent.

As hosts, South Africa’s U21 team gets to play in the tournament, joining 15 other countries in the biennial event that brings together sides from every continent.

Sheldon Rostron, the former head coach of the South African senior women’s side, is the chairman of the local organising committee in his capacity as the director of sport at North-West University.

“This is a very important honour for South African hockey,” Rostron said. “It will have several spinoffs like establishing that we can host more events like this in South Africa.

“We can build a foundation of trust with the FIH and hopefully they will see us as a prime destination for future events. The country is hungry for hockey and hopefully corporates will see this global event, identify it as being exciting and invest more in hockey.

“It also gives our South African hockey players more international exposure, which is always great, and because we are in as hosts, it means Zimbabwe will be a second African team in the competition, which is also a first,” Rostron said.

North-West University is known for its world-class sporting facilities and leading teams and athletes from all over the world have held camps in Potchefstroom. Rostron said they are well-equipped to host such an important event.

“The good thing about Potchefstroom for sportspeople is that you are in close proximity to all the resources you need. It has always been the focus of the university to assist athletes and federations, and they come from across the world to come train here.

“With our high-performance institute and local businesses all being accustomed to events like this, it’s really easy to host tournaments in Potchefstroom,” Rostron said.

It is going to be tough though for the South African team to make it through to the quarterfinals from their pool: Germany, Spain and the United States are their opponents and all of them are women’s hockey powerhouses.

Australia and New Zealand were not able to play due to Covid travel restrictions in their countries.

Pools

Pool A – Ireland, Korea, Netherlands, Zimbabwe.

Pool B – Belgium, Canada, England, Uruguay.

Pool C – Argentina, India, Japan, Russia.

Pool D – Germany, South Africa, Spain, United States.

“You never really know how a pitch is going to play,” Kagiso Rabada said, “but we had an idea from the warm-up that it would favour the seamers and bowled accordingly.”

And brilliantly.

South Africa bundled Bangladesh out for just 84 in their T20 World Cup match in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, a total they then chased down with six wickets in hand and 39 balls to spare to significantly boost their nett run-rate.

Rabada led the way with an outstanding display that brought him career-best figures of 3/20. On a pitch that almost demanded Test-style bowling, he was bang on the mark with both his lengths and skills from the outset.

“There was a lot of grass on the pitch and a bit of zip, as well as being a bit two-paced. We learnt from the Australia game here and we also noticed a bit of swing in the warm-up,” Rabada said after the win.

“You never really know how a pitch is going to play, but we had an idea that it would favour the seamers and we bowled accordingly. In my three overs up front there was a bit of bounce, seam movement and swing.

“So conditions were in my favour and you just try to get the ball in the right places. Anrich Nortje [3.2-0-8-3] is also bowling pretty rapidly at the moment and every bowler that came on stuck to the game-plan and got us into an even stronger position,” Rabada said.

South Africa also know full well that their semi-finals qualification could come down to nett run-rate and they used the small target as an opportunity to boost that figure to more than one run per over better than rivals Australia: 0.742 to -0.627.

After a rocky start, they won in the 14^th over largely thanks to Temba Bavuma’s quickfire 31 not out off 28 balls. Rabada said criticism of the captain has been ill-informed.

“There’s nothing more to say about Temba, the results are there. You are always going to have critics and we make peace with that, we take the good with the bad.

“You can’t control what is said outside the game, but we probably put more pressure on ourselves than the public do.

“Obviously we chatted at halfway about nett run-rate and we wanted to try and finish the chase as early as possible. There was a clear instruction to finish before 15 overs, we did that and we are happy,” Rabada said.

We know what to expect from David Miller, but Kagiso Rabada has always trained hard and the considerable work he has been putting into his batting lately brought reward as the pair of left-handers steered South Africa to a thrilling four-wicket victory with just a ball to spare over Sri Lanka in their T20 World Cup match in Sharjah on Saturday.

Miller stole the limelight with successive sixes in the final over, but Rabada played a vital role with a four and a six in 13 not out off just seven balls.

Rabada’s four was down to the third man boundary and it brought the winning runs when the Proteas needed a single to win. But his six, a glorious drive over long-off, in the penultimate over was a vital and magnificent strike when South Africa were needing 22 off just nine deliveries.

“KG always wins the shot of the day competition,” bowling hero Tabraiz Shamsi said after the match in which the wrist-spinner took 3/17 in his four overs. “No matter the situation, he pulls off the shot of the day, he does it so often.

“But it was a really special six today and reward because he puts in a lot of hard work on his batting. It was one of those games where you can’t guess which way it’s going to go.

“I was really nervous, not 100% sure, but you’re confident the guys in the middle can pull it off. It was really nice to see David and KG finish it off.

“This is a new team and we’ve won those sort of moments more often than we’ve lost them,” Shamsi said.

Their opening loss to Australia put the Proteas on the back foot, never mind the drama of the last week surrounding BLM and Quinton de Kock, but Shamsi said the team are not afraid to dream they can still win the World Cup.

“We’re very comfortable with where we are sitting. We are all ready to win our remaining games, that’s all that matters to us, we are here to try and win the World Cup.

“There’s a World Cup to be won, so how would anyone not be passionate about that? We’re just trying to win every game and if we don’t believe we can win the World Cup then we should rather stay home and watch on TV.

“Every game someone different is doing a great job for the team and we are really happy with the way things went in our last two matches. Sure, we are up against some very strong teams, but so are we,” Shamsi said.

David Miller reproduced his heroics of old as he struck two sixes in the final over as South Africa snatched a dramatic four-wicket victory with just a ball to spare over Sri Lanka in their T20 World Cup match in Sharjah on Saturday.

The win keeps South Africa very much alive in the competition, but it looked like being another frustrating batting performance by the Proteas as, chasing just 143 to win, they got themselves into a tangle and were left needing 15 runs off the last over.

But Lahiru Kumara bowled two balls in the slot on middle-and-leg and Miller (23* off 13) dispatched both of them over midwicket for six. He then took a single, leaving Kagiso Rabada (13* off 7) to slice the winning runs to the third man boundary, having earlier smashed a vital six in the penultimate over.

South Africa seemed out of the game when leg-spinner Wanindu Hasaranga took a hat-trick.

He struck a key blow at the end of the 15^th over when he bowled Aiden Markram (19) and he then returned in the 18^th over, with the Proteas needing 31 runs.

With his first ball he had Temba Bavuma (46) caught at deep midwicket off a long-hop and then Dwaine Pretorius tried to clear long-on off his first delivery and didn’t come close, giving the 24-year-old only the third hat-trick in a T20 World Cup, after Brett Lee in 2007 and South African-born Curtis Campher in the qualifying round of this year’s tournament.

South Africa’s problems began though in the powerplay at the start of their innings when Dushmantha Chameera removed Reeza Hendricks (11) and Quinton de Kock (12) in the fourth over.

Bavuma was then involved in the unfortunate run out of Rassie van der Dussen (16 off 11) as South Africa slipped to 49 for three after eight overs.

Bavuma ensured he stuck it out though, fighting hard in his run-a-ball innings as he and Markram added 47 in six overs.

Hasaranga then seemed to have fatally derailed the chase, but Miller and Rabada showed that it is never over until the last over.

Sri Lanka’s batting would have collapsed like a house of cards were it not for opener Pathum Nissanka’s 72 off 58 balls. He anchored the innings much like Bavuma did, before accelerating brilliantly at the death.

South Africa’s bowling was superb though, Markram (2-0-8-0) and Anrich Nortje (4-0-27-2) not giving much away in the powerplay.

Sri Lanka tried to attack in the middle overs but Tabraiz Shamsi was too good for them, bouncing back from his off day against the West Indies with superb figures of 3/17 in his four overs.

Pretorius was once again brilliant at the death, taking 3/17 in three overs from the 15^th.