Ken Borland

T20 franchise cricket has changed the life of more than one cricketer and the IPL, who held their mega auction at the start of the week, has done that more than most. But Betway SA20 Commissioner Graeme Smith wants South Africa’s franchise T20 tournament to do that and revitalise the game in the country he captained with such distinction.

The Indian Premier League is obviously the benchmark all other leagues aspire to, and their auction saw record prices being paid for the next tournament being held from March 14 next year, with the 10 franchises spending more than £60 million overall.

Smith wants the SA20 to continue growing in stature such that it is considered to be part of the top group of T20 tournaments, and the fact that so many South Africans and overseas players who feature in the SA20 are being picked up by the IPL as well, bodes well for the stature of the January/February competition.

Proteas stars Heinrich Klaasen, Marco Jansen (the most expensive overseas player), Quinton de Kock, Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada, Gerald Coetzee, David Miller, Aiden Markram, Faf du Plessis and Lungi Ngidi have all been signed up by the IPL, as well as lesser-known players like Lizaad Williams, Kwena Maphaka, Matthew Breetzke, Donovan Ferreira, Ryan Rickelton and Tristan Stubbs, who have shone in the SA20 and thereby attracted the attention of the Indian franchise owners who all have teams in the IPL too.

Amongst the highest-paid overseas stars who were bought at the IPL auction are players like Josh Buttler, Jofra Archer, Moeen Ali, Noor Ahmad and Rashid Khan, who have all featured regularly in the SA20.

“From an SA20 perspective, it’s lovely to see the platform provided by our tournament to these players and there are a significant number of South African players in the top money-earners list,” Smith told sportsboom.com in an exclusive interview at the Wanderers in Johannesburg on Monday.

“Last year we produced the most players going to the IPL of all the overseas countries, and that shows the growth of our franchise cricket. And that includes a few youngsters, those are the good stories of people’s lives being changed, like Kwena Maphaka going to Rajasthan Royals for £142 000.

“So the exposure from the SA20 is very important but we also hope that the tournament keeps the Proteas strong. They haven’t had a great period in T20 cricket since making the World Cup final, but the IPL auction and the SA20 tournament show that there is still some incredible talent there.

“There is a lot of franchise cricket played around the world and we want to elevate SA20 so that it is one of the No.1 picks. There is like a Tier One of these T20 franchise tournaments and we certainly want to be up there. I think we are establishing ourselves as one of the Tier One events.

“The feedback from the overseas players has been incredible. They love coming to South Africa because of the crowds, they say the tournament is well-run and, most importantly, they say it provides extremely competitive cricket. Two years into the event, there is much higher confidence that we can pull it off and we hope it just keeps developing,” Smith said.

Smith has high hopes that the SA20 will also keep developing South African domestic talent into world-beating international stars. Never mind being able to get them on the phone, the likes of Tristan Luus, an SA U19 all-rounder, can sit in the Mumbai Indians changeroom and chat face-to-face with Ben Stokes about the game. Likewise, Breetzke, who has just set off on his international career, will be chewing the ear off of fellow top-order batsman Kane Williamson in the Durban Super Giants locker-room.

“With our rookie draft and our introduction of the SA20 Schools competition, we’re going to expose a lot of youngsters. Plus the franchises are unbelievable when it comes to their attention to their pipeline and talent. They bring great expertise in terms of the support staff.

“Maybe before SA20, our players were not developing in the right way, they were becoming fully professional late in the day and you were still trying to educate them at national team level. But playing against the best shows you where you need to improve and what it takes to play at that level. They can sit and chat with a Ben Stokes or a Kane Williamson, and you’ll have international physios telling them that these are the levels they need to reach physically,” Smith said.

The bottom line is always commercial, however, and the SA20 continues to be the second-biggest money-spinner for CSA after the Proteas men. That has enabled things like the SA20 Schools competition, an annual camp for U19 girls and an umpire exchange with The Hundred in England, to be introduced.

There was more good news for the SA20 on the commercial front on Monday as they announced a new partnership with DP World, the global smart logistics and supply chain company.

Victory over Boland in Paarl at the weekend has ensured our DP World Lions men’s team go into the final week of round-robin action in the CSA T20 Challenge at the top of the log, but it was no cruise for our gutsy Pride.

Having lost the toss, our DP World Lions had to bat second and, after another clinical bowling display, they may have been chasing only 130, but the Boland Park pitch just became slower and lower as the day progressed and #ThePrideOfJozi in the end won with six wickets in hand, but with just two balls to spare.

The hard-fought victory, their fourth in a row, mean they go into Wednesday’s match against Western Province at the DP World Wanderers Stadium with a one-point lead over the North-West Dragons at the top of the log. 

Leg-spinner Junaid Dawood again excelled as he took three for 21 to become the leading wicket-taker in the competition this season, and he was well-backed by our pair of returning Proteas spinners, Bjorn Fortuin (4-0-22-0) and Nqaba Peter (4-0-28-1). Paceman Lutho Sipamla was also excellent with the ball, taking two for 19 in three overs.

Reeza Hendricks then showed his experience and class as he steered the Pride to victory with a fluent 72 not out off just 50 deliveries, a matchwinning effort with the bat. Zubayr Hamza scored 37 and it was their second-wicket stand of 82 in a dozen overs that was the backbone of the successful chase.

While praising the resilience and determination of the team in bouncing back from a poor opening match against the Titans, assistant coach Jimmy Kgamadi says our DP World Lions are still trying to improve with every outing as they look to defend their title.

“As coaches, we are very pleased because we did not start well against the Titans, who hammered us, really. But the team has shown great character to come back the way they have. And also to do it on the road in Bloemfontein and Paarl, to pull those matches through is great,” Kgamadi said.

“Paarl is a difficult place to play because it is very challenging conditions, a very slow pitch. We played three spinners to suit the conditions and that just shows the good depth in the squad, we can play in any conditions.

“For Reeza to avail himself to us is very special, he could have spent time with his family instead. He brings such experience and seniority, and enormous stability to our batting. He also uplifts guys like Zubayr, Wandile Makwetu, Connor Esterhuizen and Mitch van Buuren when they bat with him.

“But we never felt we had it in the bag because Boland bowled and fielded very well and the pitch went very slow, it really was difficult to score. But the guys held their nerve and were able to take it deep,” Kgamadi said.

Now the DP World Lions will be back in home conditions in Johannesburg against a Western Province team who are in sixth position in the standings and so desperately need a win to keep their hopes of being in the playoffs alive.

Our DP World Lions have shown glimpses of their best in each of the departments – the batting against the Warriors in their second game, the bowling in the first half of the innings against the Dolphins and against Boland, and the fielding versus the Knights in Bloemfontein – but Kgamadi is hopeful that #ThePrideOfJozi will be able to put all three facets together in a complete performance against Western Province.

“I’m still waiting for that great all-round performance, when all parts of our game come together. We’ve seen glimpses, but it hasn’t all come together from the first over to the 20^th and I can’t wait for when the puzzle all comes together. But the attitude and energies of the team is certainly up there,” Kgamadi said.

It will be a momentous weekend for Boland cricket as their thrilling climb to the summit of the CSA One-Day Cup standings, playing top-class 50-over cricket to win five of their seven matches, has rightfully been rewarded with hosting rights for the final in Paarl, but it has been a week in which the credibility of Cricket South Africa has taken another beating.

That’s because Boland’s opponents in the final were basically decided in the CSA boardroom, with the troubled organisation’s directors imposing an almost unprecedented penalty on the Eastern Province Warriors for failing to meet their transformation targets against the KZN Dolphins in Durban in their first match on February 16.

The controversial penalty raised eyebrows enough; the fact that it took CSA’s hotchpotch Board three whole weeks to decide on what they, but not many others, believed was appropriate action, led to much head-shaking. It’s a blow to the image of CSA because it suggests yet again that their leadership is a mess, focused more on political agendas than providing direction to the game they are meant to be serving and bettering.

Arriving at Kingsmead and finding a very spin-friendly pitch, the Warriors decided to choose a third frontline spinner in Jason Raubenheimer, a Coloured from Schauderville, undoubtedly a disadvantaged part of Gqeberha. But that created a problem in balancing the side because it meant leaving out a Black African player, leaving EP with just a couple in their starting XI – wicketkeeper Sinethemba Qeshile and all-rounder Andile Mogakane.

It was a breach of CSA’s stringent quota rules, which require three Black Africans and a total of six generic Black players to be included in every XI. The Warriors registered a massive 126-run bonus point victory, riding a brilliant unbeaten 148 from opener Jordan Hermann. Ironically, it was seamer Mogakane who destroyed the Dolphins batting in a devastating burst of four for 23.

Teams have sometimes failed to meet their race quotas in recent years, but have been able to apply to CSA for permission, based on injuries or illness. Head of Domestic Cricket, Eddie Khoza, is a reasonable man, a lover of the game, and he has generally been sympathetic in this regard. But because EP did not get permission and made their selection for ‘cricketing reasons’ i.e. tactical, and not because of injury/illness, it is believed the decision to severely punish them was made by the Board.

The last time a team was deducted points for missing quotas was twenty years ago, but then last Sunday night, after tournament broadcasters SuperSport had already announced the playoffs line-up, news leaked from CSA that the Warriors were going to be docked all five points for their flouting of the race laws.

But that’s not all!

Eastern Province Cricket were also hit with a R500 000 fine and, even more astonishingly, the Dolphins were given four points for a match in which they were utterly thrashed. It was a meritless gift to KZN that punished the Northerns Titans, a totally innocent party in this fiasco. They had finished the end of the round-robin stage in second place and were due to host the Qualifier that would decide who went to Paarl to play Boland.

But the four boardroom points given to the Dolphins lifted them above the Titans and Kingsmead hosted the Qualifier. A typical spin-friendly, slow pitch was produced for the Highveld visitors, and the Dolphins predictably triumphed to reach the final.

(Upon reflection, I have decided on a small addition here: Credit does need to be given to the Dolphins for the way they bounced back from such a poor start, winning four of their next six matches. They too are victims in this whole mess, which has detracted from their good performances.)

When this new leadership of Cricket South Africa took over a few years ago, it was hoped that they would be a unifying force following the divisive tenures of the previous guard. Hyphens and em-dashes look very similar; the former is used to connect words while the dash is employed to separate thoughts or ideas in a sentence. The current CSA Board seem to have confused them, judging by their recent decision-making. Remember the David Teeger mess a year ago when they rushed to take action, used spurious reasons to justify it and then lied about it being a security issue?

Taking three weeks to make a decision and then choosing the most incendiary option has to be down to poor leadership; there are not enough ‘hyphenators’ on the CSA Board and too many ‘dashers’. There is talk of a big rift between the independent and non-independent directors of the body running cricket in South Africa.

Dashing the trophy hopes of a Warriors team that represents the nursery of Black cricket in this country is bad enough, but CSA’s spraygun reaction has unduly prejudiced the Titans, as well as teams like Western Province, North-West and the Free State Knights.

By gifting the Dolphins four unearned points, they have also allowed them to score five bonus promotion/relegation points for finishing second and not fourth on the One-Day Cup log, leaving them two points ahead of WP in the crucial battle to stay in Division One, and level with EP and the Dragons, and just one point behind Free State.

It’s not just the cricket-loving public who have been left dismayed by CSA’s decision. Imagine how the players feel. Are the CSA mandarins saying Raubenheimer is not deserving of benefiting from transformation initiatives, or that playing a third Black African player would have negatively affected the Warriors to such a huge extent that it would have cost more than 126 runs? Because that’s what one can infer from their decision to take all five points away from the winners on the field and give four to the losers … 

Never mind the irony that it was a Black African player in the promising Mogakane who inflicted the most damage with the ball on the Dolphins.

Does the CSA Board really care about the true transformation of our playing resources or are they just content to tick boxes and satisfy a government that is notoriously callous when it comes to actually improving the lives of the disadvantaged rather than just talk about it?

While government certainly must foot the blame for the dire lack of facilities in disadvantaged areas and the stifling effect that has on the pipeline, CSA need to stop hiding behind the incompetence of the ANC and acknowledge that transformation is failing. That is the biggest takeaway from this week’s shambles.

There is plenty of Black talent coming through the number of excellent cricket schools we have in the country, but too many of those fall off the grid. Instead of hauling a forward-thinking coach and great cricketer like Robin Peterson over the coals, the CSA Board should be focusing on that pipeline.

The grim reality is that the CSA Board don’t really care. Too many of them have their eyes set on scoring political points and riding the cricket gravy train as far as it can take them. Otherwise they would surely have done one simple thing to help the bleak state of our domestic cricket: Let our local teams operate under the same transformation rules as the national sides. That would mean the average use of Black and Black African players is tallied at the end of the season and teams that fail to reach their targets can then rightfully have the book thrown at them. Small infringements like that of the Warriors in February would then not lead to such a disproportionate reaction.

Jake White has been talking all week about how proud a club Munster are and they certainly embarrassed his Bulls team on Saturday night, thumping them 31-17 in their United Rugby Championship match at Thomond Park.

It was a wonderful effort by the home side, led by a superb pack that stood up to be counted and never gave an inch to a side renowned for their physicality. Munster were also highly efficient when it came to controlling the game, their halfbacks, the livewire Craig Casey and man of the match, flyhalf Joey Carbery, both being outstanding.

A scrappy opening quarter saw the Bulls leading 3-0 through a Johan Goosen penalty, but once Munster began to execute better, the visitors had no answer and were dominated and well and truly beaten. The Irish side were clearly determined to improve their record after three losses in four games, and lifted by a passionate Thomond Park crowd.

And it all started up front as Munster bossed the gainline, using relentless pick-and-goes to batter the Bulls into submission. Eighthman Gavin Coombes scored twice from close range in the first half as the home side went into the break 17-3 up.

The Bulls needed to find something special in the second half, but they continued to kick poorly and so lost the territory battle, they were inaccurate at the rucks and Munster put their lineout under pressure.

Flyhalf Goosen did not come out for the second half as he had to have a head impact assessment, but his replacement Chris Smith made a horror start to hand Munster the initiative again straight away after the break.

A poor chip ahead by Smith was gathered by Carbery, who countered and then placed a clever kick infield, which Smith made a total hash of gathering, prop Jeremy Loughman getting a boot to the ball and then following up to score.

Munster were now well-clear, 24-3 up, and to make matters worse for the Bulls, prop Mornay Smith was yellow-carded in the 47^th minute for a cheap shot into the back of an opponent.

The Bulls made too many mistakes in the first half to get any attacking play going, but they did score twice in the second half, either side of Munster’s fourth try, to make the scoreboard look a little less humiliating.

Replacement back David Kriel managed to make a big impact, first brilliantly claiming an up-and-under and then getting on the outside of his defender and passing inside for flank WJ Steenkamp to score. Kriel then picked up a ball that had bobbled loose after some big Bulls defence and dashed away for their second try.

The relentless carrying of the Munster forwards had meanwhile seen excellent flank Tadhg Beirne plunge over for their bonus point try.

The Bulls battered away in the closing stages to try and get a losing bonus point, but lacked the accuracy and sheer bloody mindedness to get past a Munster defence that put everything on the line.

Scorers

Munster – Tries: Gavin Coombes (2), Jeremy Loughman, Tadhg Beirne. Conversions: Joey Carbery (4). Penalty: Carberry.

Bulls – Tries: WJ Steenkamp, David Kriel. Conversions: Chris Smith (2). Penalty: Johan Goosen.