Ken Borland

The University of Pretoria cricket team, known as the Assupol Tukkies, have dominated club cricket in South Africa recently, but now they are looking to make their presence felt on a world stage as they participate in the inaugural South African finals of the Red Bull Campus Cricket Tournament.

Tukkies have won South Africa’s National Club Championships for the last two years, they have been the champion university five times since 2006 and have totally dominated the premier league of their province, Northerns, winning the title for the last five years, going unbeaten for 85 matches.

But the Red Bull Campus Cricket T20 Tournament provides new challenges for Tukkies and coach Pierre de Bruyn is unequivocal about how motivated his team are to succeed when they take on old rivals Stellenbosch University, known as the Steinhoff Maties, in the three-match finals in Pretoria on April 8 and 9.

“To be the first South African team to play in the World Finals of Red Bull Campus Cricket is a huge incentive for us. It’s an opportunity to play on a world stage, this is the Varsity World Cup. Just to get there and be one of the eight countries playing in England will be huge and we’ll be going there to win it,” De Bruyn says.

By rights, Tukkies will be favourites to be the South African qualifiers, given their recent dominance over Maties, but De Bruyn is wary of writing Stellenbosch University off.

“It’s never easy playing against Maties and it’s always been a big rivalry against them, a very competitive edge.”

“If we were playing long-form cricket against them I’d be a lot more confident, but in this format it’s always 50/50. You just need one or two individuals to come off and good sides get beaten, and Maties certainly have guys to make it very difficult for us,” the ex-Titans, Dolphins and Norfolk cricketer says.

De Bruyn is far removed from the reserved type of coach and he freely admits that he only had a relatively small amount of talent as a player, but he thrived on challenges and was the sort of tenacious cricketer who really bugged the opposition.

He is in charge of nurturing some of the best talent in South Africa and one of the first lessons he teaches them is to suck it up when times are tough.

Amongst the exciting talents in the Tukkies team are Theunis de Bruyn, the top-order batsman who turned 21 in October and has come of age this season, scoring half-centuries for the Titans on both his T20 Challenge debut and four-day Sunfoil Series debut.

Left-arm paceman Vincent Moore also played for the Titans and knocked over 10 batsmen in three four-day matches at an average of just 23.80.

Two of the stars of South Africa’s ICC U19 World Cup triumph, batsman and captain Aiden Markram and fast bowler Corbin Bosch, have also enrolled at Tukkies and those overseeing their development are perfectly happy that they are at the right place to make the most of their talent.

Batsman Sean Dickson, wicketkeeper Heinrich Klaasen and leg-spinning all-rounder GC Pretorius are also showing that they could belong in franchise cricket with their performances in the CSA Provincial competitions.

The one notable absentee from the Tukkies squad is opening batsman and left-arm spinner Regardt Verster, a member of the 2012 SA U19 team, who is constantly in the thoughts of his team-mates as he recovers from a serious car accident.

The form book is clearly in favour of the University of Pretoria as they have won the last three matches against the Stellenbosch students. They won the 2012 National Club Championships final by six wickets and beat them by four wickets in round-robin play in 2013. They then beat the Maties by 14 runs on the Duckworth /Lewis Method in the final of the SA Universities Week in December.

University of Pretoria squad: Gerry Pike, Aiden Markram, Theunis de Bruyn, Sean Dickson, Heinrich Klaasen, Johan Wessels, Tian Koekemoer, GC Pretorius, Corbin Bosch, Vincent Moore, David Mogotlane, Ruben Claasen, Bantu Dandala.

http://www.redbullcampuscricket.com/southafrica/latest/red-bull-campus-cricket-south-africa-tukkies/

No one ever doubted during his playing days that Pierre de Bruyn was, as they would have put it on the East Rand, “a tough oke”.

Through 15 years of professional cricket for Easterns, Northerns, the Titans and the Dolphins, De Bruyn was famous for being a real scrapper, someone who made the absolute most of his talents.

A first-class record of 4637 runs at an average of 37, with a highest score of 202, and 108 wickets at an average of 29 only tells half the story because he was an even greater competitor in the limited-overs formats, and yet De Bruyn is happy to say “I wasn’t talented at all”.

“I managed to string together 15 years as a professional cricketer through complete hard work. I always tried to be one step ahead of the guy next to me through focus, discipline and enormous work ethic. I really wanted the tough situation,” he says.

De Bruyn retired in 2010, having left his beloved Titans to spend two seasons with the Dolphins, and is now a Level III coach. Having discovered how to make the most of his own talent, it is pleasing that the all-rounder is now teaching youngsters how to do the same.

The 36-year-old is the technical director and head coach at the University of Pretoria, a top-class outfit that is dominating South African club cricket.

“From what I’ve experienced as a player, I can teach the youngsters how to start and sustain a professional career, both of which are not that easy. I’m working with guys who have everything in terms of talent, but I can really teach them things in terms of mental preparation or how to build an innings. It helps having had a tough career myself,” De Bruyn says.

Going to the Tukkies nets opposite the famous High Performance Centre at the University of Pretoria, it is clear the cricket club is being run like a professional outfit.

Their focus is clearly on the future – “The pace of the game is moving so fast and you need to get there before anyone else,” De Bruyn says – but they haven’t lost sight of the traditions that all great teams have.

Going into the upstairs section of their clubhouse is like a walk down memory lane as former Tukkies greats are commemorated in photographs and on an honours board – names like Mike Macaulay, Syd Burke, Alan Jordaan, Hein Raath, Tertius Bosch, Anton Ferreira, Martin van Jaarsveld, Jacques Rudolph, New Zealand Test cricketers Neil Wagner and Kruger van Wyk, AB de Villiers, Marchant de Lange, Morne and Albie Morkel, Paul Harris, Faf du Plessis, CJ de Villiers and Zimbabwe’s Kyle Jarvis.

Tukkies have also been at the forefront of the women’s game in South Africa, producing current national captain Mignon du Preez and fellow internationals Melissa Smook, Yulandi van der Merwe, Lonell de Beer, Cindy Eksteen and Charlize van der Westhuizen.

“Tradition and history is part of our culture of success. We let the guys know about the traditions of the club; we’re 95 years old now and they must never forget who represented this club,” De Bruyn says.

The most obvious feature of their training sessions is intensity: De Bruyn works groups of two or three players hard in fielding drills while former Titans coach Chris van Noordwyk is very hands-on in the nets, giving tactical advice and lots of encouragement.

“We’ve definitely got a professional approach, I want to show these high-performance cricketers what a professional environment is like so that when they get the call-up to higher honours, like Francois le Clus, Graeme van Buuren and Theunis de Bruyn have this season, they are familiar with the standards and know what to expect. They don’t have to try and find their feet for the first two weeks, which can set you back badly,” De Bruyn says.

Being able to use the services of coaches like De Bruyn, Van Noordwyk and academy coach Aldin Smith – who have all played first-class cricket – is obviously one of the keys to Tukkies’ incredible recent record: They have won the Momentum National Club Championships for the last two seasons, unbeaten, triumphed in the Universities Sports South Africa Week in December, and have won the Northerns Premier League for the last four years, with an unbeaten run of 85 games.

But the considerable support of the university’s sports office and chief sponsor Assupol also plays a major part and the facilities at Tukkies are first-class. De Bruyn says R2.5 million has been spent on upgrading the nets and they will also have full use of the state-of-the-art new CSA Centre of Excellence opening this month.

The wealth and success of the club also guarantees the steady flow of promising cricketers, many of them the recipients of bursaries.

The Tukkies 2^nd XI also play in the Northerns Premier League and are challenging for a place in the top three, showing the incredible depth present at the club.

The critics, however, say the club is greedy and causing an imbalance in the province by hogging all the best players.

“It’s tough. The elite squad is 25 players, which covers the 1^st and 2^nd XIs. We need that depth because this season alone we’ve lost seven players to the next level and we have to make sure we have replacements.

“It’s a fast-moving environment and it’s not like guys are stuck in the second team. They’re training and competing with first-class players day in and day out and the club is basically like a full-time high-performance programme for the Titans. It’s tough for the local clubs, but it’s the same in Port Elizabeth, Potchefstroom and Stellenbosch. It’s a massive positive for any union to have a strong university,” De Bruyn says.

Northerns Cricket Union president John Wright agrees that the Titans benefit from the excellence of Tukkies.

“The other clubs are under the impression that Tukkies get preferential treatment, but it’s not the case. They have top facilities, full-time coaches and the support of the university and a major sponsor, so they attract the top players. It’s just an unfortunate fact of life that these factors weigh against the other clubs, but it all benefits the Titans.

“They just have to be aware of the flip-side: If they take all the good players, then they might not have anybody to play against,” Wright says.

Corrie van Zyl was the national coach from 2009 to 2011 and he also ran the high performance academy, so he knows what it takes for young cricketers to make the step up to international level, which is why his excitement over Cricket South Africa’s new Centre of Excellence at the University of Pretoria should make all cricket fans happy.

CSA opened their new state-of-the-art facility at Tukkies on Thursday night, ensuring that the best science and technology will now be applied to the cricket development pipeline.

“It’s sometimes tough to convince people that this sort of facility is what you need, especially when the national team is doing so well, but I believe you need something like this to sustain that success. To stay number one, we have to do things differently,” a delighted Van Zyl, the general manager of cricket, told The Pretoria News at the launch.

“It’s been an unbelievable experience seeing this come to fruition and I hope it will serve as motivation for all our young cricketers to be part of this. Hopefully the Centre of Excellence will bring that spark that will push players to go the extra mile,” Van Zyl said.

Building for the R30 million project began last April and the high-tech facilities are not just intended for the elite players of the national team.

“There is so much else that is important in the pipeline and this centre will address that too,” Van Zyl said. “Although we’d like the national team to be here too, I must emphasise that this is a commitment to all levels of our cricket. We will expose players from within the more mainstream part of the pipeline – cricket centres of excellence in the previously-disadvantaged areas, such as Fort Hare Academy and provincial academies – to expose them to the latest video analysis and technology to grow them and for us to broaden our talent base.”

It’s amazing that such a sleek, impressive facility could be built in less than a year and its beneficial effects should stretch on for many more years.

“The facilities are unbelievable and it’s going to be the best place for teams to prepare. As well as the indoor part, we have all the University of Pretoria outdoor nets, which can be set up to replicate any away country a team needs, as well as the L.C. de Villiers Oval field.

“This is a real cricket complex and I’m hoping it will become the nerve centre of South African cricket, somewhere where we can share knowledge,” Van Zyl said.