Ken Borland

The Mumbai Indians Cape Town were the first team to announce their five pre-auction signings for South Africa’s new T20 league early next year, and they are all proper stars of the shortest format, led by two of the best bowlers in the business – Rashid Khan and Kagiso Rabada.

According to the rules of the still-unnamed tournament, each of the six franchises must make five direct signings before the auction, to comprise three foreign players, one player capped by South Africa and one uncapped.

MI Cape Town, which is owned by Reliance Industries, clearly pulled out all the stops in securing the services of spinner Rashid, pace spearhead Rabada, exciting new talent Dewald Brevis, and a pair of Englishmen in all-rounder Sam Curran and the explosive Liam Livingstone.

The 23-year-old Rashid, from Afghanistan, is wanted by all the T20 leagues around the world because of the many individual matchwinning performances he has produced in T20 as well as his effervescent personality. A canny leg-spinner who bowls at a brisk pace, a useful contributor with the bat down the order and a fine fielder, his signing for the South African league is a major coup.

While Rabada is one of the most feared fast bowlers in the game, the 19-year-old Brevis was all the rage in South Africa at the start of the year when he broke the record for the most runs in the U19 World Cup, playing some amazing innings. He then represented Mumbai Indians in the IPL, and clearly made an impression.

The MI Cape Town statement on Thursday confirmed that they will play in the same blue-and-gold colours of the Mumbai Indians, who have won the IPL five times since 2013.

Akash Ambani, the chairman of Reliance Industries, said, “I’m excited as we begin our journey in building MI Cape Town. With our direct player signings, we have taken the first step towards building the MI philosophy – having a strong core around which the team will be planned.

“I am glad to welcome Rashid, Kagiso, Liam, Sam, to the #OneFamily, and happy to have Dewald continue with us on this new journey.

“We are certain that MI Cape Town, like our two other teams, will play the brand of cricket Mumbai Indians is synonymous with – playing fearless cricket, and the same will resonate with the passionate cricket fans of South Africa and across the world.”

The first five players confirmed for South Africa’s new T20 league will certainly add the sort of value Commissioner Graeme Smith is striving to include in the line-ups.

There were many who believed Aiden Markram would be in charge of the Proteas by now, but even though the product of Cornwall Hill College in Centurion admitted on Tuesday that “I have not got it all worked out yet”, he is clearly becoming one of the key generals in the South African white-ball team.

That side will be in action again on Wednesday evening as they take on Ireland in the first of two T20 matches in Bristol. It will be interesting to see what XI the Proteas field because they have often experimented against the Irish in the past. Paceman Kagiso Rabada has been ruled out of both games with an ankle injury.

But they are fresh off a 2-1 series win over mighty England in which they fielded a few players who may have been thought of as fringe members of the squad that is being built for the T20 World Cup in October.

Markram, although he is their highest-ranked T20 batsman, was one of the ones to sit out, but it says something of his standing in the team that he was given a full explanation of the reasons why it was done. He returned for the deciding match against England and scored a brisk 51 not out off 36 balls as the Proteas batted their hosts out of the contest. Markram also fulfilled the vital sixth bowler role.

“Not playing in India was incredibly frustrating, but it’s one of those things even though it’s strange to get Covid these days,” Markram said.

“But here in England, the communication has been really good from the coach, the management team and captain David Miller. We were told where we stand, we understand where the selection is coming from and why they did it.

“These things happen when you’re building towards a World Cup, you have to give everyone a fair opportunity. Rassie van der Dussen and I understood why we were sitting out.

“The communication made it a lot easier. We’re on a journey to the World Cup so we understand why we try things and different options. If it doesn’t work, then rather get it wrong now than at the World Cup,” Markram said.

The 27-year-old has been one of the most dominant batsmen at SuperSport Park in Centurion, which is one of the smaller grounds in South Africa but still bigger than the ground in Bristol.

England had the Proteas in disarray in the first T20 in Bristol last week but, as they arrange their plans for the World Cup, being able to perform on smaller grounds is one of the things they need to sort out.

“We’re maybe a team that’s better on slower pitches and bigger fields, we’ve played some of our best cricket in tougher conditions,” Markram said.

“But we definitely want to get better at smaller venues where the margin for error is a lot smaller. We’re going to try and nail that because we want to keep growing as a team.”

*Play starts at 7.30pm

Stand-in captain Keshav Maharaj leads South Africa into an ODI series against world champions England from Tuesday and he said on Monday that “For me it’s about picking up where Temba Bavuma left off, we know our strategy and philosophy as a team.”

Regular captain Bavuma will miss the entire England tour due to a torn tendon in his elbow, and the ODI fortunes of the Proteas will be watched with keen interest because it is the one format in which their performances have lagged a bit. Plus there is the unprecedented decision to forfeit three Super League World Cup qualifying matches in Australia next January.

These three ODIs in England are not part of the Super League, but they will be a good indicator of whether South Africa’s 50-over team is starting to come together with a World Cup next year.

“Relatively speaking, we have not done as well in ODIs,” Maharaj said, “but we have tried various methods and combinations and hopefully we have found our rhythm now.

“We have put in a lot of hard work in the last 12 months and hopefully we will see results now. This might not be part of the Super League, but we are still playing international cricket and representing our country.

“It’s an opportunity to play more together as a unit, and it is still an important series as we try and get those combinations right for when there are lots of important Super League points coming up.

“We are trying to build some confidence in the ODI unit, we have come a long way and this series is an opportunity to do something special as a team,” Maharaj said.

Forewarned is forearmed and hopefully the Proteas will not be shellshocked when the England batsmen launch their now trademark all-out assault on them from the start of their innings.

“England do have a very positive approach, and if conditions allow it then we can be more aggressive too. But it’s about being smart and doing what we can to negate their batting.

“England have a lot of all-rounders in their middle/lower order and they bat quite deep. We have to make sure we execute the basics, get our thinking right on the day and adapt very quickly to conditions,” Maharaj said.

The venue for the first ODI – Chester-le-Street – is in Durham, the capital of the north-east of England, and the last time the Proteas were here was in the 2019 World Cup when their pacemen cashed in on helpful conditions to bowl Sri Lanka out for 203 and win by nine wickets. It was one of their few good days in that tournament.

England will want to capitalise on the emotion of Ben Stokes, the hero of their World Cup triumph, playing his last ODI on his home ground, the Test captain having announced his retirement from the international 50-over format on Monday.

The last month in England has produced never-seen-before scenes in Test cricket as the team representing the home of the stiff upper lip and historically often dominated by dour Yorkshiremen and Lancastrians, have pulled off four successive fourth-innings run-chases with all the dash and aggression of a limited-overs game.

England have chased down four targets in excess of 250, the first team in the history of Test cricket to do so in a calendar year, and they have done so extraordinarily quickly. Traditional Test logic is that scoring anything more than 250 in the fourth innings is never easy, but England have won by seven wickets twice and by five wickets twice in beating New Zealand 3-0 and now levelling their postponed series against India 2-2.

Their run-rates in those innings have been 4.93 chasing 378 against the powerful India attack, and 3.53, 5.98 and 5.44 against the New Zealand bowling line-up that won the World Test Championship last year.

These extraordinary achievements have come under the refreshing new positive philosophy of coach Brendan McCullum and captain Ben Stokes. It has been called BazBall in honour of the Kiwi-born coach, but it is also a reflection of how captain Stokes, one of the great all-rounders, has always tried to play the game.

Having seen off the two teams that played in the inaugural World Test Championship final, England are now heading into a series against South Africa, currently second in the standings.

Many critics will be tempted to write off the Proteas as having no chance, but let’s not forget they beat India in a series at the start of the year and then drew with the Black Caps in New Zealand. And South Africa have a history of taming teams that have set out to play ultra-aggressively against them, thanks to their perennially strong bowling attacks.

Kagiso Rabada and Anrich Nortje are amongst the fastest bowlers in the world, and left-armer Marco Jansen is an exciting prospect who could surprise the English.

But it could be an unfamiliar strength that the Proteas turn to: In Keshav Maharaj and Simon Harmer, South Africa have two world-class spinners and, with the pitches in England starting to dry out and take turn in August, their contest with the mighty English batting order should be memorable.