Ken Borland

A dismal year of batting has come to an end for the Proteas, in which they reached previous lows achieved before only by the Bangladesh team as it first made its way in Test cricket, and Cricket South Africa urgently needs to implement some crisis planning that includes current players and coaches, and those who have recently retired.

South Africa were bowled out for less than 200 in seven successive Test innings, that dismal run only coming to an end in the second innings in Melbourne as a last-wicket stand of 27 between Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortje saw them stagger to 204 all out.

Only one team has had worse runs: Bangladesh with 12 scores of less than 200 in a row in 2001/02, just a year after they played their first Test, and eight in a row in 2018.

There were other unwanted statistics: South Africa’s batting average of 24.1 runs-per-wicket in the calendar year is the fourth-worst ever and scoring just two centuries and 19 fifties in 2022 is also amongst the top-three of meagre returns.*

The declining quality of domestic cricket has been fingered by many as being to blame for the poor quality of the Proteas batting, but the only people who will really know if this is true or not are those intimately involved with the local game. Coaches like Robin Peterson and Vinnie Barnes, current players like Dean Elgar, Rassie van der Dussen, Temba Bavuma and Aiden Markram, former greats like Faf du Plessis, Hashim Amla and AB de Villiers, even a youngster like Kyle Verreynne who has just come through the domestic system, should all be in the room and canvassed for their opinions.

It is with reluctance that I say the bean counters at CSA will also have to be involved because financial constraints have undoubtedly caused some of the problems.

We also need to have an urgent look at the standard of our pitches. Surfaces that favour pace bowlers have been pretty stock-standard in South African cricket for a long time and traditionally the country has produced some great fast bowlers.

But our depth is not as good as many believe – the pickings are fairly slim once you go past the fabulous foursome currently playing for the Proteas. One of the reasons for this is that our domestic pitches offer too much assistance – whether through excessive seam movement or inconsistent bounce – and our bowlers don’t learn the skills and game-plans required to do well on the better batting surfaces generally found at international level.

Australia have probably the deepest stocks of quality pace bowlers because they grow up learning their trade on good batting wickets, with pace and bounce that reward good bowling.

And that helps their batsmen, because they are always facing quality attacks at home as they come through the system.

The lack of depth in quality in our domestic attacks also affects the development of our batsmen – they are not tested for long enough periods and dodgy technique is not exposed and punished as it should be. Being able to build an innings and withstand pressure bowling from both ends for long periods are weaknesses we are currently seeing at Test level.

Unfortunately, when it comes to systemic issues, there are no quick fixes. The kneejerk reaction of getting an entirely new top six in is unlikely to work because that removes what little experience there is and the Proteas will start at zero again.

Unless CSA really look after, nurture and prioritise the level below the Proteas, then these unusually low batting returns, which are happening in all three international formats, will become the norm.

It is also going to require CSA undoing some of the policy decisions made in recent years that have weakened the domestic game.

*Stats courtesy of Sampath Bandarupalli of CricInfo

After a bitter, confrontational year, there are many in international golf who just wish the whole LIV Golf affair and the resulting civil war would be resolved and the game could go back to the way it was.

Even Rory McIlroy, probably the most vocal supporter of the establishment tours, this week admitted that the whole feud has “gotten way out of control” and some sort of truce and lasting peace needs to be found.

LIV Golf holds their season finale this weekend with their Team Championship at Donald Trump’s National Doral. The purse is believed to be a staggering $50 million and it will surprise no-one that Trump has come out and praised the Saudi Arabian backers of the event and their big-money disruption of the status quo.

Back here in South Africa, as we prepare to go into the high-season of summer golf and the big co-sanctioned events, there is some good news. Golfers such as Louis Oosthuizen, Charl Schwartzel and Branden Grace, who have always been favourites of local fans, will be on the fairways competing for some of the big prizes in the major tournaments despite having joined the LIV circus.

Schwartzel and Grace will be joining the likes of Dylan Frittelli, Oliver Bekker, Dean Burmester, Thriston Lawrence, Danie van Tonder, Erik van Rooyen and even the little-known MJ Daffue, the Pretoria product who has earned his PGA Tour card and led this year’s U.S. Open at the halfway stage, at the South African Open from December 1-4.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout is also hopefully going to play one or two events.

Oosthuizen is going to play in the Alfred Dunhill Championship at Leopard Creek from December 8-11, but will miss the SA Open because he is going to be in the U.S. for his children’s first week of the new school year.

At the moment, none of the LIV defectors will be going to Sun City to play in the Nedbank Golf Challenge though, because that is a DP World Tour event, part of their season-ending series, the invitations based on their order of merit rankings. The DP World Tour’s attempt to prevent LIV golfers from playing in any of their events was blocked by a UK court though, with a final ruling expected in February.

Although events like the SA Open and Alfred Dunhill Championship are co-sanctioned with the DP World Tour, they are played under the auspices of the Sunshine Tour and they are not going to turn away such drawcards as Oosthuizen, Grace and Schwartzel.

The Sunshine Tour is also going all out to ensure those who have never been drawn to golf as a spectator sport have plenty of reasons to come to these tournaments, especially the SA Open, which is being played at Blair Atholl Estate for the first time.

Sunshine Tour commissioner Thomas Abt explains that “We want to create an exciting and fun event, not just for the hardcore golf fans but for their partners and children too”.

“We will be showcasing the best of South African golf, but what else is there that attracts people? We have a strong vision of fan involvement, so there will be exciting fan parks.

“We want to create a real sense of occasion, we have some interesting options there, plus on every day, we will have three spectators putting for cash – R10 000 on the first three days and R100 000 on the final day. And it’s all at a spectacular destination,” Abt says.

Hopefully the golf family will be reunited in South Africa this festive season. At the end of the day, surely the game, its rich traditions and history, are worth more than a few making many millions of dollars?

After all, professional golfers always tell you it’s not the size of the paycheque but the prestige of the title that really matters. Or has LIV Golf brought us to the end of such idyllic notions?

A contingent of 11 South African golfers will tackle a daunting Southern Hills layout from Thursday in the PGA Championship, the second Major of the year, with the 7556-yard course favouring those with top-class approach play.

Tilted greens with fast run-off areas that repel wayward approach shots, combined with heavy bunkering, make for a difficult challenge that will put a premium on accurate approach play and good putting.

Erik van Rooyen is the leading South African on the PGA Tour in terms of the Shots Gained on Approach statistics but he has a love-hate relationship with the PGA Championship. His best finish in a Major was his tied-eighth finish in the 2019 event at Bethpage Black, but last year at Kiawah Island he smashed a tee-box marker on his way to missing the cut.

Although he withdrew for unexplained reasons from last weekend’s Byron Nelson Classic, Van Rooyen is South Africa’s second-highest ranked golfer at No.61 in the world.

Louis Oosthuizen (15^th) is still South Africa’s highest-ranked performer, but a cloud of uncertainty hangs over a golfer who has perennially flattered to deceive at the Majors, having six runners-up finishes to go with a solitary win – at the 2010 Open Championship.

Oosthuizen has been strongly linked with the breakaway LIV Golf Invitational Series backed by Saudi Arabia, which starts in June, so this could be a swansong at the Majors for the 39-year-old.

Christiaan Bezuidenhout is third in the rankings amongst South Africans at 67^th and also good around and on the greens. He has been consistent, making 13 of 15 cuts on the PGA Tour this year, without being a regular contender.

For a real dark horse, look no further than world number 68 Shaun Norris, who has been the best putter on the DP World Tour this year and strong in his approach play as well. This week could be a great opportunity for him to improve on his Major record of five missed cuts in seven events, with a best finish of tied-61^st in the 2018 Open.

The other South Africans in the field – Justin Harding, Garrick Higgo, Dean Burmester, Oliver Bekker, Charl Schwartzel, Danie van Tonder and Branden Grace – can all be considered long shots, although Southern Hills was the venue for two memorable Southern African Major triumphs with Nick Price winning the 1994 PGA Championship by a lengthy six shots and Retief Goosen triumphing in a nervewracking playoff for the 2001 U.S. Open.

Not only is Southern Hills long, but it will be playing to par-70 and there are normally tricky winds to deal with in the rolling hills of Oklahoma’s Green Country, as well as a creek that runs throughout the course. It requires precise planning and execution, especially on the lay-ups, and the winning score is not expected to be much under-par.

Proteas batsman Zubayr Hamza will be able to leap back into action less than a year after testing positive for a banned substance, as the International Cricket Council announced just a nine-month ban for the 26-year-old on Tuesday.

Having returned a positive sample for the diuretic Furosemide on January 17, Hamza accepted a provisional suspension on March 22. So he will be eligible to return to play on December 22 this year, in time for the height of the South African summer.

The ICC, in their statement released on Tuesday, said there had been “no significant fault or negligence on his part” and he had admitted the infringement, so what may be seen as a lenient punishment has also been backdated to March 22.

The South African Cricketers’ Association, which supported Hamza through the legal process, said the Western Province batsman had provided “full disclosure of medications that he had been taking, and the sequence of events leading up to the positive test. Through this process, we were able to determine how Furosemide came to be in his sample”.

Hamza expressed his relief and denied any deliberate attempt to illegally enhance his performance.

“I have never intentionally taken a prohibited substance and I am relieved that the ICC determination confirms this fact. The past few months have been difficult for me on a personal and professional level, and I have learnt lessons that I will share with my fellow players,” Hamza said.

Last year the World Anti-Doping Agency also announced that Furosemide was one of the substances that should no longer be considered a banned substance if its concentration in the urine was less than 20ng/ml.

Hamza, who first played for the Proteas in 2019, went through a couple of years of poor form after he was dropped from the Test side during the series against England in early 2020.

But he gave his career a fresh dose of oxygen last summer and not only returned to Test cricket in New Zealand, but made his ODI debut for South Africa as well, scoring 56 against the Netherlands at Centurion.

Then came the positive doping test, a deflating incident which fortunately will not cost the talented strokeplayer more time out of the game.