Ken Borland

Gerald Coetzee strikes one as a young cricketer who is fully committed to getting the absolute best out of his talent, so when his Free State Knights team were relegated at the end of the season, it was only natural that he should look elsewhere to further his burgeoning career.

The Northerns Titans, with whom he has now signed, are an ideal fit for the exciting fast bowler, being a team with a history of winning and a reputation for converting domestic talents into international stars. The Titans dominated the last decade of franchise cricket and they topped the Division I promotion/relegation log after the last two seasons.

The Proteas and their fans will also be delighted because the newly-capped Coetzee is too exciting a talent to be languishing in Division II.

The 22-year-old Coetzee played two Tests and two ODIs for South Africa in the season just finished, and proved himself to be a strike-bowler with 14 wickets. He is also a handy lower-order batsman.

“He’s an x-factor player, dangerous with the white ball and he will also really help us in the four-day competition,” Titans CEO Jacques Faul told kenborland.com. “He’s an exciting talent who has the kind of profile of young fast bowlers we have developed in the past – guys like Morne Morkel, Dale Steyn and Lungi Ngidi.

“With Lungi being contracted to the Proteas, we don’t get to see much of him in Titans colours, and Lizaad Williams too has spent time away with the national squad. So we need Gerald’s firepower as well,” Faul said.

Northerns Titans have also signed Free State opening batsman Matthew Kleinveldt, who fitted in well with the Knights after moving there in 2020 following 10 seasons in the Western Cape. In the last two seasons based in Bloemfontein, Kleinveldt has scored 692 runs at an average of 49.42.

With Theunis de Bruyn’s future in doubt and Heinrich Klaasen likely to be away with the Proteas for much of next season, it makes sense for the Titans to beef up their batting, an area where they also looked a bit light on experience at the end of last season.

The movement of Coetzee and Kleinveldt to Northerns is important because it also ensures two of the Knights’ better players still have a place in Division I cricket. With its strong schools and university, Free State is an important area of talent in terms of the national pipeline and their relegation to Division II is not good news for South African cricket as a whole. Especially since it is KZN Inland who are replacing them in the top division, meaning there are two teams from KwaZulu-Natal, based less than 100km apart, now playing in the A Section.

Of the Knights’ other players of national interest, Raynard van Tonder, so prolific with the bat a couple of seasons ago, is moving to the North-West Dragons, where he will definitely bolster a fragile batting line-up. Pace bowler Migael Pretorius, however, is believed to have turned down contracts elsewhere and will be playing as a free agent, which probably means he will be heading overseas to play in T20 leagues.

The 36-year-old Pite van Biljon, who was playing T20s for South Africa in 2021, is heading to Pietermaritzburg to play for the KZN Inland Tuskers, one of the few signings they will be making as they are believed to be backing the talent that won them promotion.

Five days ago, Dewald Brevis was all the rage as the most exciting T20 talent anyone had ever seen, while Temba Bavuma’s continued presence at the top of the order for South Africa at the T20 World Cup had people all up in arms, many of them enraged, judging by social media comments.

This weekend, however, Brevis will open the batting for the Northerns Titans in the CSA T20 Challenge final with his mortality exposed, having looked all at sea against the sheer pace of Free State Knights fast bowler Gerald Coetzee in their semi-final.

Bavuma will open the batting for the Proteas in the early hours of Sunday morning against the Netherlands, some confidence renewed after it all finally clicked against the powerful Pakistan pace attack and he struck a commanding 36 off just 19 balls.

‘All’ the Proteas have to do is beat the Netherlands and they will be in the semi-finals, and all true South African fans will be hoping the skipper builds on the promise of his previous innings.

How quickly things can change in cricket is one of the prime attractions of the game; the vacillating fortunes are why players are always entreated to mine a good run of form for as long as they can.

If someone asks me for my list of the top-10 T20 innings I have seen, then Brevis’s outrageous, record-breaking 162 off 57 balls is on mine.

Coming from someone whose talent has already had people shouting from the rooftops, it was understandable that the innings was greeted with a wave of public opinion that the 19-year-old should be rushed straight into the Proteas team.

But we need to be careful not to extrapolate too much from one innings. When Dave Callaghan blasted 169 not out off just 143 balls, an incredible scoring rate back in 1994, for South Africa against New Zealand at Centurion, he looked a world beater and it was also one of the best innings I have seen.

But as good a cricketer as Callaghan was, the innings proved to be a once-off and his next highest score in 24 other ODI innings was just 45 not out.

On October 31, Brevis knocked two sixes and three fours off Coetzee as he scored 29 runs off 13 balls against the highly-rated 22-year-old. Coetzee eventually had his nemesis caught on the boundary in the final over.

On November 2, this time given the new ball against Brevis, Coetzee, pride hurt, was on fire. He came roaring in and bowled fast and aggressively at a batsman two-and-a-half years his junior. He ruffled him up with short-pitched bowling, struck him on the gloves and this time Brevis could only score five runs from the 10 balls he faced from the St Andrew’s Bloemfontein product on the same pitch.

Brevis surely has the talent to sort all this out, of course, but the cautionary lesson is that he is still just a 19-year-old with just one season of experience playing with men. He spoke with maturity about the journey he has to travel after his 162, and the precocious potential he undoubtedly possesses needs to be carefully managed by the national selectors.

The selectors have certainly taken a lot of flak for persisting with Bavuma at the top of the Proteas batting order, but there were many glimpses of the reasons why against Pakistan: the crisp strokeplay, the ability to hit boundaries in the powerplay with ‘proper’ cricket shots and his brilliant handling of the short ball.

The jury is still out, of course, on Bavuma’s long-term future as an international T20 batsman, but the graph has now taken a little up-turn back in the right direction.

Dewald Brevis has a phenomenal talent for batting destruction, but in terms of character he seems a prim and proper, respectful young man who backs himself to the hilt, but is also not getting ahead of himself.

Importantly, he always seems to play with a chuffed smile on his face, and that grin was as broad as the bat with which he plundered 13 sixes during his incredible innings of 162 off only 57 balls, breaking all sorts of records, for the Northerns Titans against Free State Knights in the CSA T20 Challenge in Potchefstroom.

A more emphatic statement of proof that the 19-year-old is the genuine real deal could not have been made. While Brevis believed last year already that he was ready to play for the Proteas, he understood the need for him to go through the journey of dominating at senior level after being player of the tournament in the U19 World Cup earlier this year, with a record tally of runs.

“Playing in this tournament is an important part of learning my game, I have to do this, it’s part of my journey. I’m at the right place, where I need to be, scoring thirties and forties was part of my development,” Brevis said after exploding into the limelight.

“Everything is built up, every match is part of learning your game, and what’s important is that this innings was the next stepping stone. The people in control [of national selection] know best and it will work out as it should.”

Brevis is the quintessential modern T20 superstar. His magnificent ball-striking and confidence to back himself from ball one fits in perfectly with where the shortest international format is heading, plus he offers dangerous leg-spin bowling, the hardest craft to master but one in which he already shows much promise. And he is a superb fielder – he capped his unbelievable innings with a brilliantly-judged boundary catch against the Knights.

“The tougher the conditions, the better I am. I’m always trying to be positive, you must take the first three balls of an over on, don’t wait until the last three because then the bowler is on top.

“You have to allow good balls as well, there always will be good balls, but you must try and score ones off them. I’m trying to score off every ball,” Brevis said.

After the current T20 World Cup, we will surely see Brevis take his talent to the international stage.

DULLSTROOM, Mpumalanga – For Ntombi Mhangwani, the executive head of department for Vodacom Business Marketing, it is obvious that if Vodacom has customers in a certain province then they need to look at how they develop the talent from the grassroots in that area.

Mhangwani was speaking at the South African Golf Development Board (SAGDB) clinic held at Highland Gate Golf and Trout Estate; these clinics are something the Vodacom Origins of Golf Series has supported while growing the game and empowering communities during their 18 years of involvement with the Sunshine Tour.

“In a country like South Africa, with the levels of inequality we have, certain life experiences like golf courses are natural for some but for others it is completely foreign. If we want to nullify these inequalities then we have to reach the disadvantaged areas as well,” Mhangwani said as 18 youngsters, between the ages of seven and 16, from the Nelspruit, Lydenburg and Dullstroom districts were happily hitting balls on the Highland Gate driving range under the watchful eye of the Sunshine Tour professionals giving of their time to provide some coaching.

“These kids will paint their picture of life out what they believe is possible, and this is how we can build dreams. Some of these kids have never seen houses so big or grass so green, but we want to tell them that just because this is how South Africans live in other communities, it does not mean they can have no access to it.

“When Vodacom says it wants to inspire change by going Further Together, we mean we want to develop together. So that means building and giving back to the communities that are our consumer base.

“The only way to do that is by working in partnerships with the communities and giving their children exposure. It’s not about throwing money at the problem, but about authentic partnerships,” Mhangwani said.

Vodacom’s involvement in golf goes way beyond just their superb support of the professionals – the Origins of Golf tournaments are the longest-running series on the Sunshine Tour – and giving back to communities is one of their core principles.

Partnering with the SAGDB to show the younger generation that golf can be a pathway to success is one of Vodacom’s key vehicles for change, and the purpose and life-skills golf can give to learners is something Mhangwani loves about the game.

“Golf is about a value system, training and discipline, and that can permeate into these youngsters’ schooling, their life at home and choosing the right friends.

“Champions are also born out of watching other champions practise, passing their knowledge and skills on. Exposure builds potential, it allows these learners to dream.

“If even one person at the clinic looks at the game and says that they want to be part of golf, they want to do that too, then we have succeeded,” she said.