Ken Borland

Having gambled and lost with his selection of Elton Jantjies at flyhalf, Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber bravely tried to limit the damage to his player’s confidence after the first Test against Wales at Loftus Versfeld.

Jantjies endured a miserable first half of skewed kicks out-of-hand, missed shots at goal and a dropped ball that led to a try, and was substituted before the start of the second half with the Springboks 18-3 down. Barring a few exceptions, the whole team had been sub-par in the first half, but with the help of pugnacious input from the bench, they staged a stirring comeback to win 32-29.

It is only right, though, that Nienaber stand up for Jantjies because the player was put in an invidious position by being selected for the first Test with, as the coach himself said after the game, “less than 30 minutes of game-time this year”.

I can understand why the risk was taken with Jantjies, who has only just recovered from a shoulder injury and whose club did not make the playoffs of Japan’s Rugby League One. The 31-year-old has also had the mental stress of being charged with malicious damage to property and contravention of the Aviation Act to deal with, before those charges were withdrawn after he agreed to pay for the damage he caused to an aeroplane flying back from Turkey.

Flyhalf is one of the few areas where the Springboks are lacking depth and the management were obviously planning ahead in case first-choice Handre Pollard suddenly gets injured. If Jantjies then had to come in and play with so little rugby under his belt, it could have been even worse.

The World Cup winner does now at least have 40 minutes of game-time, and hopefully the trauma of it has not dented his confidence too much.

Nienaber tried to sugarcoat his replacement as being because “he had given everything”, but when he said “he hasn’t played any rugby” he was closer to the reason why.

Despite the fan furore, Jantjies is still a player who has much to offer the Springboks. What he is capable of when in form definitely adds some attacking spark to a team which, for long periods of the first half against Wales, looked desperately in need of some offensive verve.

How he bounces back from this calamitous showing is what matters now.

Reeza Hendricks has been one of those perennial fringe Proteas batsmen, often chosen in squads but seldom getting a lengthy run of games, and he feels that he has missed out on some opportunities through his international career simply because he tried too hard.

For a sportsman to make it at international level, they need to have a massive hunger to play in that high-stakes arena, so one can understand someone on the fringes being desperate to grab whatever opportunities they get to play and impress. But that desperation can sometimes be counter-productive, like someone who is drowning frantically trying to grab their rescuer and pulling them both down into the depths.

Having made his Proteas debut in 2014, in a T20 series in Australia, Hendricks has played 24 ODIs and 40 T20s since then. So an average of eight matches a year, which neatly captures his status as a nearly-man for South Africa – a regular pick but not really a regular starter.

Now 32, Hendricks is no longer fazed, he is used to having to make the most of limited chances.

“It’s just how my career has gone,” Hendricks told Saturday Citizen this week. “You just have to find a way of dealing with it. I’m in a good space now, whatever happens, I will just always be ready.

“My attitude has changed from a couple of years ago though. When I was younger, I was trying my hardest to break into the team and nail down a spot. But the more you think about it, the more pressure you put on yourself and you don’t do as well because of it.

“I obviously want more opportunity, but I don’t feel more pressure now when I get it. I just try and take every opportunity I get and my mindset is to try and be the best I can be on that day.

“And if things go good or bad, such is the game,” Hendricks said.

The Central Gauteng Lions star played just one ODI last season, scoring 6 against the Netherlands at Centurion, but he was amidships in the T20 World Cup in the UAE, sadly struggling as he scored just 17 runs off 25 balls in the three matches he played.

It is probably fair to say that Hendricks took a while to get going last summer. At domestic level, he was solid, if not spectacular.

In four-day cricket, he averaged 42 for the Lions with 294 runs in seven innings, but there was only one century and one half-century. In the T20 Cup he averaged 28 at a strike-rate of 122, but only passed fifty once.

But the top-order batsman ripped it up at the end of the summer.

His return to his best came in the One-Day Cup final. Going into that match against the Northerns Titans at Centurion, Hendricks had made just 110 runs in six innings.

But he spearheaded an extraordinary victory for the underdogs, lashing a magnificent 157 off just 136 balls as the Lions recovered from 214/6 to chase down 319. It was one of the greatest innings in South African domestic 50-over cricket and a timely reminder of his class.

Suddenly, the selectors’ decision to keep him on the national contracted list made perfect sense, and Hendricks then went on to stroke two more centuries for SA A in Zimbabwe. Shortly thereafter, he was named in the Proteas squad for next month’s T20 series in India.

“I wasn’t focused on making a statement,” Hendricks assured despite there definitely being whispers around South African cricket that maybe his international days were over. “I just wanted to go about my business and try contribute to the team.

“In the One-Day Cup final, we needed someone to stand up. In the build-up, I felt that there was one big knock just around the corner, but I didn’t know it would be a really big one. I just tried to stay in the present moment and then cash in.

“So I was in a good space and then able to capitalise on my form, having a good run for SA A. That tour obviously helped when it came to selection. I always want to keep knocking on the door, put my name in the hat.

“Before that, it was not a bad season, I felt I had been fairly decent. I went about my job quietly, although I didn’t score as many runs as I would have liked. But then the last bit was really good,” Hendricks said.

Back on-song and eager to show the Proteas they can rely on him whenever they need him, Hendricks will call on his experience to keep reminding the South African public of just how classy a batsman he remains.

“I think my understanding of my game is a lot better now and I’m quite comfortable with how to approach situations and different conditions, the different game-plans that are required,” Hendricks said.

The Kimberley product will be out to show he is not on the slippery slope down towards the twilight of his career, but rather at his prime as a batsman, with much to offer the Proteas.

Test rugby is always a high-stakes endeavour, but the series against the British and Irish Lions is going to be as tightly wound as the bobbins on the machines that used to stitch together the four panels that comprised a rugby ball, which is why the Springboks will be relying on the tried and tested experience within their squad, according to backline coach Mzwandile Stick.

The Lions’ last two Tests were a 15-15 draw and a three-point win over the All Blacks in 2017, and South Africa won the 2009 series through a five-point win in Durban and then the 28-25 thriller in Pretoria. So while there is much excitement over the likes of Aphelele Fassi, Damian Willemse, Rosko Specman, Yaw Penxe or Sanele Nohamba pulling on the Green and Gold next month, Stick preached caution on Thursday.

“There’s going to be massive pressure and we have to make sure we build the confidence of the youngsters. We can’t just throw Aphelele, Rosko and Yaw in together. We’ve still got a guy like Willie le Roux, who has massive experience and understands what it takes at Test level. We want Aphelele to feed off Willie and not wait until he retires to be able to learn that stuff.

“The new guys are all asking good questions, interacting and training with the experienced guys, and seeing what stuff they do off the field to prepare as well. If Willie can help Aphelele now, then it means he won’t take seven years to learn those things. We really want to build our depth and start from scratch at scrumhalf when someone like Faf de Klerk decides to move on,” Stick said.

The curse of the Covid pandemic, and South Africa’s hard lockdown, means the Springbok management has also had to focus strictly on the conditioning of the locally-based players in order to make sure they will be up to the intensity of Test rugby when they step on to the field at the Cape Town Stadium on July 24.

“As coaches we were never lectured in a pandemic and I think the last one was in 1918! But it’s been a tough challenge for the players as well and we had to improve our ball-in-play time. We know at Test level that it’s close to 38-40 minutes, but in our Currie Cup we were averaging 26 minutes. So we needed to control the stoppages and what happens off the ball.

“Fortunately the standard has really improved, skills-wise too. We know the last time we played together was in the World Cup final in 2019, but the last time the Lions played together was in 2017, so both teams are in the same situation. Luckily our overseas players have had tough, physical competition week in and week out. And no-one is interested in excuses anymore,” Stick said.

There were many blemishes in the Proteas finishing game with both bat and ball in the first T20 against Pakistan at the Wanderers on Saturday, with captain Heinrich Klaasen admitting one of the black marks goes against his name for getting out when he did when South Africa were batting.

Klaasen scored an explosive 50 off 28 balls, producing some great six-hitting, but he was caught at short fine leg trying to scoop Hasan Ali, with the Proteas on 159 for three after 16.2 overs. They ended on 188 for six, a decent total but well short of what looked likely when they already had 151 on the board after 15 overs.

Pakistan won the match by four wickets with a ball to spare as South Africa again failed to execute their skills in the last five overs, conceding 60 runs, as well as missing a couple of catches. Opener Mohammad Rizwan steered the visitors home with his clinical 74 not out off 50 balls.

“We were in a very good position to take the game away from Pakistan, but unfortunately I got out at a bad time. The job of the set batsman is to go deep but unfortunately I couldn’t do that. It was not all bad execution in the end stages, just one or two overs and we had a bit of bad luck too. But we still need to fine-tune that area of our game.

“We may be forced to experiment with players, but the game plan is set and we need to do that going forward to the World Cup. Now we just need to execute it and fine-tune it. Things like the angles we bowled to Rizwan, we need to stay out of his hitting zone, he scored a lot on the leg side. Sisanda Magala and Lizaad Williams are probably our two best yorker bowlers so we needed to stick to that plan,” Klaasen said after the match.

One positive from the match was Aiden Markram reaching a white-ball international half-century for the first time since March 2019. The elegant opener top-scored for the Proteas with 51 and he did not eat up too many balls getting there either – he only needed 32 deliveries.

“I’m really happy for Aiden, he’s fought hard to get back in the white-ball sides and today he really made a statement, he showed that he can play in this format. In the ODIs he just needs to not get out when he is set, but today’s knock was a big step in the right direction,” Klaasen said.