Ken Borland

South African rugby fans can rest easy that the four Rainbow Cup franchises won’t merely be going through the motions in yet another tournament of local derbies when the new competition kicks off on Saturday, with the massive incentive of a place in the European Champions Cup possibly being up for grabs.

Talks are apparently underway for the winners of Rainbow Cup SA to be given a spot in the 2021/22 European Rugby Heineken Champions Cup. That prestigious and lucrative tournament has prizemoney of about one million euro for the champions – the equivalent of nearly R17.5 million, which would be a huge boost for any of South Africa’s franchises given the constrained economic outlook for rugby in this country.

The Champions Cup brings together the 20 top teams from the three major European leagues – the English Premiership, France’s Top 14 and the Celtic Pro14, in which the four South African franchises are scheduled to appear later this year.

Conquering Europe may be as ambitious a plan as some of astronautics’ efforts to land on Mars but the rewards are great and will be worth the immense planning and effort. One of the things that will be required is larger squads and talks are already underway with SA Rugby for them to increase the 45-player limit for franchise squads.

Bulls coach Jake White is certainly in favour of further expansion into Europe.

“Hopefully something will be formalised because we want to take part in the Heineken Cup. There are massive incentives to play in that tournament and I remember when I coached Montpellier, the French clubs put a lot of pressure on you to qualify for that event. The importance was shown when Leinster played Munster in the Rainbow Cup last weekend and rested 13 players because they have a Champions Cup semi-final this weekend,” White said on Friday.

“Leinster have used 57 players this season in all competitions and so we’ll try and find out from SA Rugby if we can have bigger squads and more money because it’s important we get the same resources as those European clubs. If we lose players to the Springboks and get a couple of injuries, will we be strong enough to compete at three levels – Currie Cup, Pro14 and Europe?”

There are still six weeks of action remaining in the Indian Premier League, but notwithstanding the weak performances of the Proteas T20 side, there were some strong showings by South Africans in the first week of the biggest tournament in cricket, highlighted by David Miller and Chris Morris combining to steer the Rajasthan Royals to a thrilling win over the Delhi Capitals.

AB de Villiers had not played a competitive game of cricket since the previous IPL finished in November, but he opened his 2021 campaign with a matchwinning 48 off 27 balls for the Bangalore Royal Challengers in their thrilling win over the defending champion Mumbai Indians. In their next game, he was still trying to work out the wizardry of leg-spinner Rashid Khan when he was dismissed for just a single.

Chris Morris has had a frustrating start to the IPL in terms of his fast bowling, having figures of two for 41 in four and one for 27 in three overs, but he vanquished all those negativities as he roared to 36 not out off just 18 balls to win a thriller for the Rajasthan Royals against the Delhi Capitals.

David Miller missed the Rajasthan Royals’ loss to the Sikhs from the Punjab Kings in their opening game, but played hide-and-seek with the Delhi Capitals’ bowlers, hammering 62 off just 43 deliveries as he led the recovery that was finished by Morris after coming in at 17 for three.

Marco Jansen has been thrust into the limelight at the IPL from the outset by the champion Mumbai Indians, but the 20-year-old has shown immense heart with the ball. His debut was impressive as he took two wickets in the 15^th over of the Bangalore innings, including that of Glenn Maxwell, finishing with fine figures of two for 28 in his four overs. He then bowled two overs for 17 runs against the Kolkata Knight Riders. Unfortunately he has made ducks in both his visits to the crease.

Kagiso Rabada played in that thrilling Rajasthan Royals’ loss to the Delhi Capitals and was the bowler of that penultimate over that cost 15 runs as Chris Morris hit him for two sixes. Rabada had been excellent with the ball before that, taking two for 15 in three overs. He also scored nine not out off four balls with the bat.

Quinton de Kock missed the first game and then scored just two off six balls, but he can still console himself with the fact that his Mumbai Indians team can still defend a low total like 152 as they beat Kolkata by 10 runs.

Faf du Plessis never got going in his opening IPL match, being dismissed for a three-ball duck as the Chennai Super Kings lost by seven wickets to the Delhi Capitals.

Lungi Ngidi and Imran Tahir have not yet played a game, while Anrich Nortje’s participation with the Delhi Capitals was delayed by a false positive Covid test.

Faf du Plessis has seen the Proteas crumple in more World Cups than is probably fair for one player to have to go through and yet the veteran former captain is still excited about the prospect of playing in two T20 World Cups in the next 20 months and even maybe the next 50-over tournament, scheduled for 2023.

It was revealed on Tuesday that Du Plessis will no longer be one of the 16 contracted Proteas for the coming year, but he told The Citizen on Wednesday that this was expected because he is only available for T20 cricket this year.

“I’m only available for T20 cricket this year as I mentioned in my Test retirement statement. I haven’t heard any communication from CSA regarding contracts, but I know they are looking into getting us involved in T20 cricket because there are two World Cups in that format in the next two years. Two T20 World Cups in a row is going to be fire [emoji],” Du Plessis said in a WhatsApp.

India will host the next T20 World Cup in October/November this year, while Australia, who were due to hold the event last year before the Covid-19 pandemic arrived, will stage the tournament at the same time in 2022.

“There isn’t much ODI cricket this season and the ODI World Cup is only in 2023. Next season might be different in terms of games and also then the 2023 World Cup preparation, but for now with it being so far away, it’s better to build with players that can gain plenty games under their belts,” the 36-year-old added.

Du Plessis averages 57.87 in his 23 50-over World Cup appearances at the 2011, 2015 and 2019 tournaments, while he also played in the 2013 and 2017 Champions Trophy events. He also played in three T20 World Cups, in 2012, 2014 and 2016.

Du Plessis, who has been a stalwart of the Indian Premier League with 84 appearances, has previously indicated he is eager to play in more global T20 leagues around the world. Following the Proteas tour of Pakistan, he played three matches for Quetta Gladiators in the Pakistan Super League before that tournament’s suspension due to a spate of Covid-19 cases.

Whatever holiday time he has had since then will be drawing rapidly to a close as the next edition of the IPL is due to start on April 9.

The Joburg Open will return to being a standalone co-sanctioned tournament with the European Tour and will be held in a biosecure commune at Randpark Golf Club from November 19-22, the Sunshine Tour and the City of Joburg announced on Tuesday.

The Joburg Open was founded in 2007 and had one of the larger fields on the European Tour schedule, but in 2018 it was ‘nicked’ by the South African Open, with the two tournaments amalgamating into a 240-man mega-event hosted by Randpark’s two courses – Firethorn and Bushwillow. But now the events have been split again, with the SA Open due to be played after the Joburg Open, with Sunshine Tour commissioner Thomas Abt confirming it would not be held in Johannesburg this summer.

“The Joburg Open will have a field of 156 professionals, split between the Sunshine Tour and 70 from the European Tour, with everyone in a biobubble; golfers, caddies and essential staff will all be put in various local hotels and once in the bubble they cannot leave. They will have breakfast, lunch and dinner within the bubble. And they will be tested.

“They will be allowed to practise outside the bubble and there will be a pro-am, but all participants will need a negative Covid test before playing. There will be no spectators at the Joburg Open, but there will be a VIP facility in the Randpark clubhouse, which will be outside the bubble. These are some of the extensive safety measures in place, which includes isolation centres,” Abt said at Randpark on Tuesday.

The Joburg Open will be held the week after the Masters, but Abt is still hopeful that they will be able to get a top-class field for the co-sanctioned event.

“It’s impossible to know now what sort of regulations will be in place at the time of hosting the event, and we don’t have confirmation yet of which overseas players will be coming, but the European Tour have to fill those 70 spots and we have sent out a letter to our international golfing superstars requesting their support. There are no quarantine regulations in place, if a player has a Covid business visa and a negative test then he can arrive on the Monday and be in the tournament,” Abt said.

Hosting such an ambitious, massive event in this time of pandemic-induced change will put the tournament under the glare of public scrutiny, but City of Joburg executive mayor Geoffrey Makhubo stressed the benefits of putting on the tournament, which has prizemoney of R19.5 million, R2 million more than the SA Open held in January at the same venue.

“By separating this event from the SA Open, we will be able to promote the City of Joburg and mark our readiness to be open for tourism and business. Plus there are the potential new jobs the tournament will create. We recognise that Covid-19 is still a threat, but hosting the Joburg Open is an excellent opportunity to start returning to life as normal and golf has the green light from government.

“We want to save lives as well as livelihoods and the importance of golf to the tourism industry cannot be overstated. The tournament will also be staged in honour of struggle stalwart Andrew Mlangeni, who played in various Joburg Open pro-ams and attended as a guest several times. It is the first tournament we will host since he passed on,” Makhubo said.