Ken Borland

Going from the second-tier Varsity Shield competition into the starting line-up of the defending champion Bulls Currie Cup team in the same year is going to require something a bit special and that’s exactly what Sibongile Novuka has done as he was named on Tuesday to start at fullback against the Pumas in Nelspruit on Wednesday afternoon.

Apart from his own skills and attributes, it is always going to help when you have the backing of a former Springbok and Bulls legend. And the 23-year-old Novuka is represented by none other than Akona Ndungane, who suggested to the powers that be at Loftus Versfeld that they sign the University of KwaZulu-Natal star.

And judging by his lively displays off the bench in his two appearances so far, the Bulls seem to have secured an exciting talent.

“He was really good in the Varsity Shield for the UKZN Impi, he was one of the players to really put their hands up in that competition, and he was seen by Akona Ndungane, who came to us about him. He’s tall [1.92m], big [96kg], he’s got good feet and he’s solid under the high ball. We’ve had David Kriel at fullback most of the year, but this is a good week to give Sibongile a chance.

“He’s done well on the wing off the bench the last two weeks, and it will be nice to see how he combines now with two good wings in Kurt-Lee Arendse and Stravino Jacobs. We’ve got a lot of outside backs now and playing the Pumas away is as tough as it gets, so it’s going to be a good challenge for Sibongile,” Bulls coach Jake White said on Tuesday.

If the Bulls’ backline is like a buggy zipping around with nippy speedsters, then the pack is the tank that blasts through the frontline defences and creates the momentum and space.

Eighthman Elrigh Louw and lock Ruan Nortje, both of whom have the look of future Springboks, return to the starting line-up, and props Mornay Smith and Gerhard Steenekamp, who have played very well as a combination, are reunited in the starting front row.

Bulls team: Sibongile Novuka, Kurt-Lee Arendse, Stedman Gans, Cornal Hendricks, Stravino Jacobs, Johan Goosen, Zak Burger, Elrigh Louw, Muller Uys, Arno Botha (Captain), Ruan Nortje, Janko Swanepoel, Mornay Smith, Schalk Erasmus, Gerhard Steenekamp. Bench – Jan-Hendrik Wessels, Jacques van Rooyen, Mhleli Dlamini, Reinhardt Ludwig, WJ Steenkamp, Keagan Johannes, Chris Smith, Lionel Mapoe.

The Proteas enter an ODI series in Sri Lanka on Thursday and once again there is a mass of expectation on their shoulders as they look to not only win on the field but somehow also win over the hearts of the many people who are deeply dismayed by what has been going on in South African cricket lately.

One can sympathise with captain Temba Bavuma as he looks to juggle all these demands that range from socio-economic issues that plague the country as a whole to how to deal with turning pitches on the subcontinent.

South Africa’s struggles with that are well-known and they have not won an ODI series since beating Australia 18 months ago, which means they are currently outside the top eight in the race to pre-qualify for the next World Cup. And they have not won an ODI series overseas in nearly three years – again it was Australia who succumbed to the Proteas, in November 2018.

“It seems these days whenever we play there’s always something brought up that we haven’t done,” Bavuma lamented on Wednesday. “Our main aim is to win series, to try and accumulate as many points as we can to qualify for the 50-over World Cup, and we are here in foreign conditions and we don’t focus on the past, but we do learn from it. I’ve only been in this role for two series – against Pakistan and the Ireland series that was affected by the weather.

“We still have a lot to overcome as a team, there’s the stuff going on behind closed doors, but our responsibility is to make sure that what we do on the field meets a certain standard. Winning is where our minds are at and our conversations are largely centred around how we can play our best cricket. We don’t need to get involved in external matters,” Bavuma said.

The Proteas are also missing key players in Quinton de Kock, David Miller and Lungi Ngidi. The absence of De Kock means either Aiden Markram or Reeza Hendricks will open the batting with Janneman Malan, with Heinrich Klaasen or Kyle Verreynne taking the gloves; both could play as they did in South Africa’s last ODI, a thumping 70-run win over Ireland that levelled the series.

But there are also empty chairs to be filled in the management room with bowling coach Charl Langeveldt not able to travel due to Covid quarantine and assistant coach Enoch Nkwe having resigned.

“It’s our first tour without Enoch and it’s quite a big loss, especially on the tactical and strategic side. He was a good sounding board for me, someone I could test my ideas with, and we had experience of working together at domestic level. But life goes on and there’s not much we can do about it. As far as his reasons go, as a team we have not heard from Enoch himself.

“There has been a lot of speculation, but I’m sure he’s rooting for us. For it to be said there was something wrong with our team culture and environment, makes me feel … I haven’t had the opportunity for a formal discussion with him, so I would like to sit down and unpack it all with him, hear from him first. I will take what he says on board and discuss it amongst the team,” Bavuma said.

Increased intensity is what the Springboks will be working on ahead of the second Test against Georgia at Ellis Park on Friday, because the British and Irish Lions are the team who are the benchmark for that at the moment, forwards coach Deon Davids said on Sunday.

The Springboks returned to action with an efficient enough 40-9 victory over Georgia in Pretoria in the first Test, with a slow start probably being a question of rust and having to get back into the swing of international rugby.

“We could see the higher tempo and intensity of international rugby when the British and Irish Lions started their tour on such a high note against our Lions, they played some very good rugby and we saw they have some quality players. But we must understand that the Springboks have just come back, they haven’t played for a long time and we could see that at the beginning of our game.

“We had to get used to the level of intensity and physicality, we spoke about it at halftime and the players responded tremendously. We saw the longer the game went on, the more into our stride we got and the more physical we were. There are obviously things we will look to apply in the second game and the players themselves have said there are definitely things they can do better,” Davids said.

The forwards coach said he was pleased that Georgia had extended the Springbok pack, especially in the set-pieces.

“They certainly challenged our set-pieces. But our lineout had a 94% success rate and we scored two maul tries, while in the scrums there was only one penalty against us and four or five for us. It’s a process of building towards the Lions series and overall we are pleased,” Davids said.

Outstanding lock Franco Mostert echoed the satisfactory outlook.

“It’s going to take a while still but there are no excuses not to get to that required level. Hats off to the forwards, we really did our job, the mauling was good, but there is still stuff to work on for us to get to that level we need. The Lions are a world-class side and we’ll definitely have to step up, but we are happy with our first game and there is still one to go against Georgia,” Mostert said.

More than just providing the joy and relief of his first T20 series win, coach Mark Boucher said the Proteas’ 3-2 victory over the powerful West Indians offered great insight into what could work and what won’t in the T20 World Cup that will now be held in the United Arab Emirates in October.

South Africa won the fifth and final T20 by 25 runs at St George’s in Grenada at the weekend to finally vanquish a West Indian team that is rated as one of the favourites for the T20 World Cup. The win was built on the outstanding second-wicket partnership of 128 in 14 overs between Quinton de Kock (60 off 42) and Aiden Markram (70 off 48), followed by another magnificent display of wrist-spin from Tabraiz Shamsi (4-0-11-1).

Shamsi, the player of the series, was given great support this time by an impressive return to form by Kagiso Rabada (4-0-24-2) and Lungi Ngidi (4-0-32-3), while all-rounder Wiaan Mulder, included for the first time in the series, did an excellent job with two for 31 in his four overs.

“The biggest thing from the series is that we take a lot of knowledge from it because we will probably have conditions like this in the UAE. The pitches there are also going to be dry after the IPL and we’ve seen you’ve got to be skilful and smart and not just bash away. We saw that with our bowling today, the guys listened and bowled in the right areas.

“We’ve had a couple of guys out of form but we’ve still won the series, so we must be doing something right. We just want to be very smart in difficult conditions, play our brand of cricket and the guys have bought into it. Maybe why we don’t score so many runs at the end of the innings is because the Windies are very skilful there, but we are very skilful in the middle overs and in the end we won the series,” Boucher said.

Nowadays, everyone quotes a batsman’s six-hitting figures or their strike-rate as being the most important factor in T20 cricket, but the West Indies clearly dominated those statistics and yet still ended up on the losing side. Which shows that a one-paced, all-or-nothing, six or dot-ball approach is not the way to go.

“There are a couple of things in our game that we know can be much better and we would like to finish our innings better. But just because someone is out of form in one series, in tough batting conditions, does not suddenly make them a bad player. But if we can find an extra 15-20 runs – get past 180 – then it becomes very difficult to chase that in dry conditions.

“We have a basic idea of our best XI, especially when we are firing on all cylinders, but there are still places that need to be solidified. We will take confidence from beating a very good team though, and that is immense. We’ve learnt that if we really rock up on the day, we can probably beat anyone,” Boucher said.