Ken Borland

Temba Bavuma’s hopes of starting his Proteas captaincy tenure with a series win were scuttled like a ship being hit amidships by multiple torpedoes when six of his first-choice starting XI were unavailable for the deciding match at Centurion, but it is always good to see what the fringe players can do out in the middle.

Unfortunately, South Africa’s depth would appear to be of rather middling quality at the moment. Especially in the pace bowling department.

Kagiso Rabada was classy as ever and although he only took a couple of wickets, his accuracy was such that his economy rate of 4.70 was the best for any seamer in the series. Lungi Ngidi had a poor series, but he has produced the goods many times before in white-ball cricket, so it should just be considered an aberration.

Anrich Nortje was a revelation, bowling with tremendous aggression and control, and the way he rips batsmen out in the middle overs is crucial for the Proteas. Unfortunately there does not seem to be a ready-made replacement for him yet in what bowling coach Charl Langeveldt described as the “enforcer” role.

Andile Phehlukwayo was relied on to bowl at the death, with mixed success. He did take five wickets, but finished as only a little bit less expensive than Ngidi; the all-rounder bowled some excellent overs, but there were some rubbish ones as well.

One big positive in terms of the attack, though, is that Keshav Maharaj is hot on the heels of Tabraiz Shamsi as the first-choice spinner. Slow left-arm orthodox may not be as sexy as Shamsi’s mystical wrist-spin, but Maharaj showed in his outstanding performance in the third ODI that tremendous accuracy allied with teasing flight and changes of pace make him a very effective limited-overs bowler as well.

The moment Bavuma probably regrets most in the series was when he called on Jon-Jon Smuts to bowl the penultimate over in the Centurion decider. The left-arm spinner had gone well up to that point, conceding just 42 runs in his seven overs, but Hasan Ali deposited him on the banks at SuperSport Park four times in an over that cost 25 and took Pakistan past 300 and enough for victory.

Smuts is the sort of gutsy cricketer that typifies the Eastern Cape’s make-a-plan, find-a-way attitude, and he is most certainly more than the sum of all his talents. He has done well for the Proteas in ODI cricket, averaging 45 with the bat and having an economy rate of 5.46 with the ball. But the time has probably come to call on George Linde, the left-arm spinner and hard-hitting batsman who has done so well for the Cape Cobras, and for South Africa whenever he has had the opportunity.

Coach Mark Boucher also spoke about the need for another left-handed batsman in the batting line-up, and Linde certainly fits the bill.

The batting as a whole looks in better shape and the middle-order is surely settled now with Bavuma steering the ship at three, along with Rassie van der Dussen at four and then David Miller and Kyle Verreynne in the finishing roles.

Heinrich Klaasen has not really set the world alight since being Player of the Series against Australia last year, and Verreynne, with two half-centuries and 163 runs in his four innings, deserves an extended chance now, having shown he has the temperament for international cricket.

Janneman Malan is another of the replacement batsmen who should keep his place. Aiden Markram has just not been able to capitalise on how damn good he has looked at the crease and an average of 25.33 for the series pretty much sums up his ODI career thus far. Malan, meanwhile, has put up the numbers – an average of 74 and a strike-rate of 89 in his four ODI innings – and those are figures that should not be ignored.

The other big positive from a batting point of view was the return to form of Phehlukwayo. His innings of 29 and 54 at Centurion were not enough to secure victory for the Proteas, but they were exactly the sort of contributions the team are looking for from their all-rounder.

What a victory for the Dolphins in the 4-Day Series final and, while home ground advantage clearly played a big role in their triumph, that is not why they won the premier domestic title.

The Dolphins ended the franchise era on top of the pile because of their indefatigable fight and belief, and an enormous amount of skill and hard work. In the well-deserved clamour over the spectacular performances of spinners Prenelan Subrayen and Senuran Muthusamy, who took 19 of the 20 Titans wickets (the other one being a run out), it is easy to forget how wonderfully well the Dolphins had to play just to first make the final and then to ensure it was staged where they could bring into play their greatest strength.

The Kingsmead pitch has completely changed character over the last 20 years and is now the most sub-continental of venues in South Africa, allowing the Dolphins to use their brilliant spinners to dominate visiting teams.

But in order to get into the final and then host it, people may forget that the Dolphins had to win back-to-back games at the Wanderers and St George’s Park, two of the toughest venues for away teams. The brilliant Keshav Maharaj had much to do with those victories.

Before that they beat the then high-flying Knights at Kingsmead, fast bowler Daryn Dupavillon taking 11 wickets to prove the Dolphins aren’t just one-trick ponies. Winning your last three matches outright is surely the sign of a champion side.

Having overcome the odds just to get into the final, the Dolphins seemed destined to have to share the title with the Titans after only 10 overs were able to be bowled on the first two days due to rain. When the Titans  began their first innings on the penultimate day, replying to a solid 295 by the Dolphins, there were not much more than five sessions left in the match.

The Titans swear that they were trying to be positive and not just bat for the draw, but in no time at all they were thoroughly entangled in the Dolphins’ spinners’ web and shot out for a record low score of just 53.

The Dolphins then had plenty of time to bowl the Titans out a second time and ensure they had the last trophy of the franchise era all to themselves.

It is just reward for all the good things going on at Kingsmead and the shares of coach Imraan Khan and CEO Heinrich Strydom have understandably risen considerably over the last year.

While the loss of the famous old Kingsmead greentop will be mourned in some quarters, and we do need to keep some of those sort of pitches going in our country, I am all for having a venue at which spin bowling is trumps. The Proteas have suffered so many calamities on the subcontinent in recent years that learning how to play in those conditions is clearly a priority.

More and more cricket will be played on the subcontinent in the years to come, so if South Africa are to challenge for global silverware, they have to master the skills needed on low, slow, dusty pitches that turn.

We need a variety of surfaces in our domestic cricket and I remember well how exciting it was in the 1980s and 90s when Kingsmead was the Green Mamba, St George’s Park and Newlands brought the spinners into play, Wanderers and Centurion had pace and bounce, and places like Bloemfontein and Potchefstroom were batting tracks which made the bowlers toil.

With the introduction of Boland and North-West into the first division for next season, Potchefstroom will be back and let’s hope Paarl will back the spinners and be a result pitch.

Having qualified for all three finals this season and taken away silverware in two of them, the Dolphins, playing a brand of cricket they trust and have mastered, and enjoying a strong culture and environment around the team, will be backing themselves to continue their dominance in the new structure as well.

In what the Ministry of Sports, Arts and Culture has described as “an extraordinary demonstration of patience”, Minister Nathi Mthethwa on Tuesday agreed to give the warring factions in Cricket South Africa another week in which to sort out their differences and adopt a new Memorandum of Incorporation for the new Board that is meant to be installed after the AGM on April 17.

The Interim Board have proposed a new MoI which seeks to rectify the poor governance in cricket by having a board with a majority of independent directors, as well as an independent chair. But the Members Council, made up of the provincial presidents, has refused to accept this and the impasse has grown uglier by the day.

Mthethwa, who put the Interim Board in place in October last year, met with the two parties on Tuesday night and his department then issued a follow-up statement on Wednesday morning that would have left no-one in doubt as to who the sports minister is backing.

The statement said: “In an extraordinary demonstration of patience, Minister Mthethwa said, ‘it is important not to allow boardroom disputes to trump player welfare. I am being dared to take executive action. In my opinion, it is clear that the court of public opinion shows no appetite for any unnecessary delays and own-goals, especially at a time when sponsors have demonstrated unbelievable loyalty and patience.

“Despite clarification on some misinterpretations and being provided with cricket best practice elsewhere in the world, the Members Council still clung to the 2013 CSA stance of ‘cricket needing to be run by cricket people’. Amongst the points of clarification were the fact that ‘independent’ does not necessarily translate to ‘cricket illiteracy’.”

In an environment that currently features as much intrigue as in a Sydney Sheldon novel, the Members Council are still deeply suspicious of having a majority of independent directors, but it was pointed out to them that a majority could mean as little as 51%.

Nizaam Carr is a Springbok loose forward who hasn’t had much game time since joining the Bulls, but he said on Tuesday that working with coach Jake White has been one of the best relationships of his career and the desire at Loftus Versfeld is strong to avoid what the player called “the same fate as Liverpool”.

With the talismanic Duane Vermeulen currently unavailable after minor knee surgery, Carr could well get his chance to shine in the preparation series that starts this weekend, with the Bulls taking on Eastern Province in Pretoria on Sunday. The former Stormers and Wasps star said the message from White has been clear: Even though several of the stars who won both SuperRugby Unlocked and the Currie Cup might not be playing, the Bulls are looking to improve their game still further.

“The message from Jake was that we have to take it to the next level, whether that’s in our diet, our training, our gym or whatever. What happened to Liverpool, what my friends have been telling me about them because I’m not a big football fan … we don’t want to suffer the same fate. So we need to do something different to stay on top, we need to take our game up a notch.

“This series is the perfect opportunity for us to prepare and you can see everyone want this opportunity. I always back myself to start but I will do whatever I can to help the team, like I had to do for the Currie Cup final. But I have a good understanding with Jake and the other coaches, in fact my relationship with Jake is one of the best I’ve experienced with a coach. It’s been fantastic to continue my journey with these fantastic people,” Carr said on Tuesday.

Carr is probably competing with former Springbok Sevens star Tim Agaba for the eighthman berth vacated by Vermeulen. While Agaba will bring work-rate and physicality to the role, Carr said he sees his strength as being the more classical ability to link with the backs.

“I want to play eighthman, I feel I am best there, but it is nice that I can cover a lot of options and different coaches want different things from their eighthman. My strength is linking, mixing it up with the forwards and backs, doing the dirty work if necessary and bringing a high tackle count. I’m also a lineout option although I’m not the biggest guy.

“I’m not one of those 120kg or 1.95 metres guys, but I bring something else to the party. I have not played as much as I would have liked here, so it feels like my first game again, something I am really looking forward to. It’s a big opportunity, that’s the motivator for all of us, we want to showcase what we’ve got, show that we can turn up at this level, given the opportunity,” Carr said.