Ken Borland

DP World Lions captain Dominic Hendricks has been able to massage away the disappointments of last season with a great accumulation of runs so far in the 2024/25 CSA 4-Day Series campaign, helping his team to the top of the standings as they go into their Christmas break.

Hendricks has scored 350 runs in seven innings this season, averaging 58.33 with one century and two fifties, all of those coming in testing batting conditions at the DP World Wanderers Stadium. His 161 not out against World Sports Betting Western Province was an epic innings spanning more than nine hours and 370 deliveries, setting up a 125-run victory. The left-handed opener then followed that up with a tenacious 89 against the Dafabet Warriors, again playing a pivotal role in a win by a massive 200 runs. He was named man of the match on both occasions.

Those back-to-back triumphs by the DP World Lions completed a hat-trick of wins at their home fortress and they top the standings with 83.96 points from four matches. The defending champions are more than 30 points ahead of the Renault North-West Dragons and the Free State Knights.

“Last season I struggled a bit, but this season I’ve really focused on being in my bubble and getting the opposition to bowl at me,” Hendricks says. “I’m not straying from my game-plan and I’m keeping things as simple as possible. I’m not trying to reinvent the wheel.

“It’s been very intense, very tough cricket at the DP World Wanderers because of how tricky the pitch has been. But we’ve done really well at home and fortunately we’ve had most of our fixtures there so far. We play four of our seven fixtures at home this season, so that’s a nice advantage. Ideally, we would like to make the DP World Wanderers our home fortress.

“We’re sitting pretty in the standings at the moment, but we can’t be complacent when we come back to four-day cricket in March. We’ll need to carry on from where we left off. We’ve bowled really well and most of the guys have been in the runs as well. We’ve shown how good we can be, and when we return there’ll be more opportunities for the guys to produce man-of-the-match plays,” Hendricks says.

The pitch for the last game, the convincing win over the Warriors, was one of the toughest DP World Wanderers surfaces the 34-year-old stalwart has come across. But the batting effort showed the character of both the captain and his team-mates.

“I was really surprised by how much movement there was right through the game,” Hendricks says. “There was actually too much movement and visiting teams often don’t know how to bowl on DP World Wanderers pitches like that. The margin of error is always small and they tend to bowl a little too short, while we are a touch fuller.

“But the conditions evolve and as the pitch becomes better for batting, so the right length changes, it can go from four to six metres. Our bowlers have been really good at adapting and they’ve taken the feedback from the batsmen as to where to bowl to make it most difficult.

“The bowlers also did a phenomenal job in Potchefstroom where conditions became very batting friendly after the new ball. They kept them to less than three runs an over for more than 100 overs, which shows their skill,” Hendricks said.

Another member of #ThePrideOfJozi who has shown his talents to great effect has been young Muhammad Manack. The 22-year-old came in at first wicket down against Western Province in the second over of the match and added 108 for the second wicket with Hendricks, while scoring a career-best 64. Against the Warriors, he came to the crease in the seventh over and added 78 with his skipper in the first innings and then made 49 in the second innings, coming in in the 10^th over and adding 64 with Josh Richards.

“Mo has certainly not looked like a duck out of water, he’s taken to that crucial number three position really well,” Hendricks says. “He made his debut last season, playing just one game while I was away for a wedding, but he immediately looked like he fits in. he’s worked really hard, but unfortunately there have not been that many opportunities for him, which is a tricky situation for a youngster.

“But he’s definitely shown he belongs, he’s a really compact, nice number three. Neil McKenzie always used to say that numbers one to three are the engine room of the team, you want your number four walking in with 40 overs bowled and ready to dominate.

“I really enjoy batting with the younger guys. At training you can know a player to a certain extent, but that’s not real pressure. So it was great to see how Mo handled himself out in the middle under pressure and how he went about his business. He’s very soft-spoken, but his temperament really stood out,” Hendricks says.

The DP World Lions advanced their lead at the top of the CSA 4-Day Series standings to more than 30 points on Saturday as they hammered the Dafabet Warriors by 200 runs in Johannesburg, sealing victory on the third day.

Having bundled the Warriors out for just 94 in the morning session on the second day, giving them a first-innings lead of 197, #ThePrideOfJozi then declared their second innings on their overnight score of 214 for eight.

That set the Warriors a target of 412 for victory, a daunting score that has never been chased down before in the fourth innings of a CSA 4-Day Series match at the DP World Wanderers Stadium.

Despite the magnitude of the challenge, the Warriors set off rapidly in their second innings, racing to 121 for two in 17 overs. But the DP World Lions showed their tenacity by fighting back and they had Eastern Province 151 for four at lunch, youngster Kwena Maphaka having taken two of the wickets as he removed both openers.

A superb yorker bowled Diego Rosier for 8 and 10 minutes before the break, the left-arm fast bowler claimed the key wicket as he had Jordan Hermann caught behind off a brilliant delivery, the left-hander having blasted 67 off 71 balls.

Less than 25 overs later, the Warriors were all out for 211, with Lutho Sipamla wrapping up the lower-order with four for 42. He also produced fantastic deliveries to bowl Andile Mogakane (1) and Sinethemba Qeshile (40).

The 23.82 bonus points earned from the match will sit nicely under the DP World Lions’ Christmas tree because this is their last four-day match until March. That takes their tally to 83.96, with their nearest challengers, the Knights and Titans, both below 50 points in the standings.

The home side had won the toss and elected to bat first, and evergreen captain Dominic Hendricks once again held the batting together on the first day, scoring a defiant 89 as he went past 300 runs for the season.

But when Hendricks fell in the final session, trapped lbw by the impressive swing bowling of Beyers Swanepoel, the Warriors had felled five of the DP World Lions batsmen with just 167 on the board.

But that brought the combative Bjorn Fortuin to the crease and he struck a crucial 50 as he decorated his 59 balls faced with nine fours. Codi Yusuf once again stood tall with the bat in the lower-order, scoring 30 as he and Fortuin added 65 for the seventh wicket.

The DP World Lions were bowled out for 291 in the last over of the first day and the second morning gifted their bowlers helpful conditions for seam bowing.

Yusuf (5-1-11-2) had Jordan Hermann smartly taken by Delano Potgieter at short square-leg off the first ball of the innings, and then trapped Proteas batsman Matthew Breetzke (4) lbw in his second over.

Meanwhile, Maphaka showed the class that has many talking about his hereditary line from #ThePrideOfJozi’s legendary fast bowler Kagiso Rabada, as he had Diego Rosier (4) edging a lifter behind and then trapped Matthew de Villiers lbw first ball with a searing inswinging yorker.

The Warriors were nine for four and the tumble of wickets spread like a disease as Sipamla and Tshepo Moreki (6.3-3-17-3) chipped in to send the visitors crashing to 41 for six inside the first hour.

Moreki’s pace and venom is often underestimated and he forced Swanepoel to retire hurt on 21 after hitting him in the head with a lifter. The Warriors’ key all-rounder, who took five wickets in the first innings, could take no further part in the match due to the concussion he suffered.

Maphaka (7-1-24-3) returned to claim his third wicket, resulting in the Warriors being bowled out for their second-lowest total ever against the DP World Lions.

The clatter of wickets took a breather when #ThePrideOfJozi came out to bat in their second innings, with Josh Richards (44) and Mohamed Manack (49) taking them to 100 for two at tea.

The DP World Lions suffered a sporadic loss of wickets through the final session, but the batsmen had done more than enough to give the defending champions an unassailable lead.

The infectious enthusiasm of the bowling attack, despite a rough start, then finished off a job very well done on the third day.

A quickfire half-century from Sherfane Rutherford and the express pace of Gideon Peters sent the Pretoria Capitals surging to the top of the SA20 standings on Monday night with their bonus point victory over a subdued MI Cape Town at SuperSport Park.

The in-form Rutherford struck a pugnacious but classy 53 off just 27 balls to lift Pretoria Capitals to 185 for six after they had been sent in to bat, providing a fabulous late boost to an innings that was restrained in a first 15 overs in which they could only score 101 for four.

Peters then took three wickets in his first two overs, prompting a dramatic collapse that saw MI Cape Town lose four wickets for nine runs between the powerplay and the halfway mark of their innings. MI Cape Town eventually limped to 132 for seven, losing by 53 runs.

Reeza Hendricks scored 68 not out off 50 deliveries, but he struggled to bat with any freedom, his first 30 runs coming off 35 balls before a late flurry saw him collect four sixes which really were too little too late.

The rest of the MI Cape Town batsmen did not cover themselves in glory either. Openers Rassie van der Dussen (15) and Ryan Rickelton (7) both fell to boundary catches inside the powerplay, while Nicholas Pooran lashed 17 off five deliveries and then promptly cut Andre Russell straight to short third man.

Corbin Bosch (2), Karim Janat (0) and George Linde (0) proved to be a very fragile middle-order, and even the big-hitting Jason Smith could only score 13 off 17 balls as he and Hendricks meandered to a 34-run partnership between the 10^th and 15^th overs.

On paper, the team from the Western Cape should be playing beautiful T20 cricket; the defending champions boast the most successful opening pair in SA20 history in Van der Dussen and Rickelton, and Pooran, Linde and Smith are feared boundary-hitters. A bowling attack of Boult, Rabada, Bosch, Rashid and Linde is a coach’s dream for T20 cricket.

But MI Cape Town have been as fragile as the delicate Disa orchids that are the emblem of the Western Cape, showing none of the resilience this summer of the Proteas which that area is also famous for. They are now at the bottom of the log, five points behind the Paarl Royals in the fourth and final playoff place, with the Boland team having two games in hand.

Their highly-rated bowling attack was also disassembled by the Capitals, as their poor death bowling once again reared its ugly head.

Rutherford and Dewald Brevis (34 off 19) lashed 84 runs off the last five overs to give the home side an above-par total on a tricky pitch for batting. It was a two-paced surface with variable bounce and all bowlers needed was basic discipline in sticking to lines and lengths to make life hard for the batsmen.

That’s where Peters excelled as he took three for 32, brilliantly supported by Lungi Ngidi (4-0-29-1), Lizaad Williams (4-0-27-1), Russell (4-0-20-1) and spinner Keshav Maharaj (4-0-19-1).

“We just tried to do the basics better tonight. Sometimes you just try to do so much as batters that you get bowled out inside 20 overs or as bowlers you get whacked around. I was just trying to hit the top of off-stump,” Peters said.

The Pretoria Capitals certainly gave the defending champions an education in how to play on pitches with a bit of spice, keeping resources in hand for a late surge but also ensuring the platform was laid with positive intent.

It will be a momentous weekend for Boland cricket as their thrilling climb to the summit of the CSA One-Day Cup standings, playing top-class 50-over cricket to win five of their seven matches, has rightfully been rewarded with hosting rights for the final in Paarl, but it has been a week in which the credibility of Cricket South Africa has taken another beating.

That’s because Boland’s opponents in the final were basically decided in the CSA boardroom, with the troubled organisation’s directors imposing an almost unprecedented penalty on the Eastern Province Warriors for failing to meet their transformation targets against the KZN Dolphins in Durban in their first match on February 16.

The controversial penalty raised eyebrows enough; the fact that it took CSA’s hotchpotch Board three whole weeks to decide on what they, but not many others, believed was appropriate action, led to much head-shaking. It’s a blow to the image of CSA because it suggests yet again that their leadership is a mess, focused more on political agendas than providing direction to the game they are meant to be serving and bettering.

Arriving at Kingsmead and finding a very spin-friendly pitch, the Warriors decided to choose a third frontline spinner in Jason Raubenheimer, a Coloured from Schauderville, undoubtedly a disadvantaged part of Gqeberha. But that created a problem in balancing the side because it meant leaving out a Black African player, leaving EP with just a couple in their starting XI – wicketkeeper Sinethemba Qeshile and all-rounder Andile Mogakane.

It was a breach of CSA’s stringent quota rules, which require three Black Africans and a total of six generic Black players to be included in every XI. The Warriors registered a massive 126-run bonus point victory, riding a brilliant unbeaten 148 from opener Jordan Hermann. Ironically, it was seamer Mogakane who destroyed the Dolphins batting in a devastating burst of four for 23.

Teams have sometimes failed to meet their race quotas in recent years, but have been able to apply to CSA for permission, based on injuries or illness. Head of Domestic Cricket, Eddie Khoza, is a reasonable man, a lover of the game, and he has generally been sympathetic in this regard. But because EP did not get permission and made their selection for ‘cricketing reasons’ i.e. tactical, and not because of injury/illness, it is believed the decision to severely punish them was made by the Board.

The last time a team was deducted points for missing quotas was twenty years ago, but then last Sunday night, after tournament broadcasters SuperSport had already announced the playoffs line-up, news leaked from CSA that the Warriors were going to be docked all five points for their flouting of the race laws.

But that’s not all!

Eastern Province Cricket were also hit with a R500 000 fine and, even more astonishingly, the Dolphins were given four points for a match in which they were utterly thrashed. It was a meritless gift to KZN that punished the Northerns Titans, a totally innocent party in this fiasco. They had finished the end of the round-robin stage in second place and were due to host the Qualifier that would decide who went to Paarl to play Boland.

But the four boardroom points given to the Dolphins lifted them above the Titans and Kingsmead hosted the Qualifier. A typical spin-friendly, slow pitch was produced for the Highveld visitors, and the Dolphins predictably triumphed to reach the final.

(Upon reflection, I have decided on a small addition here: Credit does need to be given to the Dolphins for the way they bounced back from such a poor start, winning four of their next six matches. They too are victims in this whole mess, which has detracted from their good performances.)

When this new leadership of Cricket South Africa took over a few years ago, it was hoped that they would be a unifying force following the divisive tenures of the previous guard. Hyphens and em-dashes look very similar; the former is used to connect words while the dash is employed to separate thoughts or ideas in a sentence. The current CSA Board seem to have confused them, judging by their recent decision-making. Remember the David Teeger mess a year ago when they rushed to take action, used spurious reasons to justify it and then lied about it being a security issue?

Taking three weeks to make a decision and then choosing the most incendiary option has to be down to poor leadership; there are not enough ‘hyphenators’ on the CSA Board and too many ‘dashers’. There is talk of a big rift between the independent and non-independent directors of the body running cricket in South Africa.

Dashing the trophy hopes of a Warriors team that represents the nursery of Black cricket in this country is bad enough, but CSA’s spraygun reaction has unduly prejudiced the Titans, as well as teams like Western Province, North-West and the Free State Knights.

By gifting the Dolphins four unearned points, they have also allowed them to score five bonus promotion/relegation points for finishing second and not fourth on the One-Day Cup log, leaving them two points ahead of WP in the crucial battle to stay in Division One, and level with EP and the Dragons, and just one point behind Free State.

It’s not just the cricket-loving public who have been left dismayed by CSA’s decision. Imagine how the players feel. Are the CSA mandarins saying Raubenheimer is not deserving of benefiting from transformation initiatives, or that playing a third Black African player would have negatively affected the Warriors to such a huge extent that it would have cost more than 126 runs? Because that’s what one can infer from their decision to take all five points away from the winners on the field and give four to the losers … 

Never mind the irony that it was a Black African player in the promising Mogakane who inflicted the most damage with the ball on the Dolphins.

Does the CSA Board really care about the true transformation of our playing resources or are they just content to tick boxes and satisfy a government that is notoriously callous when it comes to actually improving the lives of the disadvantaged rather than just talk about it?

While government certainly must foot the blame for the dire lack of facilities in disadvantaged areas and the stifling effect that has on the pipeline, CSA need to stop hiding behind the incompetence of the ANC and acknowledge that transformation is failing. That is the biggest takeaway from this week’s shambles.

There is plenty of Black talent coming through the number of excellent cricket schools we have in the country, but too many of those fall off the grid. Instead of hauling a forward-thinking coach and great cricketer like Robin Peterson over the coals, the CSA Board should be focusing on that pipeline.

The grim reality is that the CSA Board don’t really care. Too many of them have their eyes set on scoring political points and riding the cricket gravy train as far as it can take them. Otherwise they would surely have done one simple thing to help the bleak state of our domestic cricket: Let our local teams operate under the same transformation rules as the national sides. That would mean the average use of Black and Black African players is tallied at the end of the season and teams that fail to reach their targets can then rightfully have the book thrown at them. Small infringements like that of the Warriors in February would then not lead to such a disproportionate reaction.