Latest news with #Proteas'
IOL News
11 hours ago
- Sport
- IOL News
New captain Proteas captain for Zimbabwe Tests after Temba Bavuma ruled out injured
The Proteas' victorious World Test Championship captain Temba Bavuma has been ruled out of the two-Test series against the Zimbabwe following a left hamstring injury. Bavuma sustained the injury during the second innings of the WTC final at Lord's. The diminutive right-hander decided against retiring and scored a gutsy 66. Bavuma and centurion Aiden Markram shared a 143-run stand in 38 overs to help the side to a five-wicket victory over Australia. Veteran left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj will lead the side in Bavuma's absence. The Proteas team to face Zimbabwe features a host of new faces, while the stalwarts of the last 12 months such as Markram, Kagiso Rabada, Tristan Stubbs and Ryan Rickelton have been given a break after they played at Lord's straight after competing in the Indian Premier League.
Hindustan Times
2 days ago
- Sport
- Hindustan Times
'They create their own realities. None are champions': SA coach attacks India, Australia, England; quashes 'Big 3' label
South Africa's emphatic World Test Championship victory at Lord's has done more than silence critics. As the Proteas returned home to a hero's welcome at OR Tambo International Airport, head coach Shukri Conrad delivered a strong response to the narrative that his team had taken an easier route to the final. Much of the pre-final chatter, particularly from sections of the Australian and UK media, questioned the Proteas' credentials. Critics pointed to South Africa's WTC fixtures, alleging they had not faced enough of the 'Big Three' – India, Australia, and England – to justify their place in the final. This, despite the Proteas having played India earlier in the WTC cycle. Conrad, however, wasn't interested in debating perceptions. 'They create their own realities, and unfortunately, none of them are (Test) champions,' he told 'We are the Test champions now, so I feel absolutely nothing about the top three. I don't believe that there is a top three.' South Africa had not only reached the final with a seven-match unbeaten streak but also outplayed Australia in the title clash to earn the mace. Despite the disparity in experience – Australia fielded stalwarts like Steve Smith and Nathan Lyon, both of whom have crossed the 100-Test mark – South Africa never considered themselves underdogs. The Proteas' squad, younger and far less experienced on paper, believed in their ability. 'We always felt that we belonged. We never even felt that we were underdogs in any of this. There's never a conversation that happened in any of our team talks,' said Conrad. 'Everybody dubbed Australia as the huge favourites, probably on the back of the experience more than anything else. 'I don't think we ever, ever felt that there is a big three. Only in their own minds is there a big three. We've never felt that there's a big three. We might not have played England or Australia in the build-up to the final, but we managed to play Australia in the final, and we wouldn't have wanted it any other way.'
Daily Maverick
2 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Maverick
The long walk to Lord's: SA's cricket comes full circle from adversity to historic victory
Scoring 69 runs with two days left in a Test match and eight wickets in hand should ordinarily be a doddle. But this was the World Test Championship final on the greatest cricketing stage in the world, Lord's. And this was our Proteas' fickle batting line-up without any of the superstars of former years and who had collapsed for 138 in the first innings. And it was an ICC event and so naturally the 'choker' epitaph was already being written. X and social media have been alight for the past few days. While most of it was good and predictable for this medium, some of it has been toxic and divisive. People were 'bringing receipts', that dreadful X-speak for being proven right or someone exposing themselves for who they are — or something like that anyway. And then the tweets about our incredible victory stating: 'This is for…(followed by names of players who had gone before).' Dare mention a white Proteas player and one is excoriated, usually followed by a list of black players only. Shallow reasoning for a shallow platform. Before we know it, we are down into a cesspit that is a mixture of racism, victimhood or plain foolishness. But social media is no place for debate or properly constructed thought processes. As Kyle Verreynne and David Bedingham ended up at the crease on day four with Verreynne scoring the winning runs, just two Wynberg Boys' High kids living the dream, it was hard to think of the long and arduous road that had preceded this moment of sheer joy. Perfect storm For the past decade and more, South African cricket experienced 'the perfect storm' with the retirement of key players between 2014 and 2020, inter alia, Jacques Kallis, Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla, AB de Villiers, Morné Morkel, Ashwell Prince and Vernon Philander, to name a few. It was, as with any sporting code, a sort of natural progression. Yet, continuing to grow cricket's post-readmission roots was more complex than many like to think and was stymied, in large part, by South Africa's unique affinity for self-inflicted wounds. Cricket South Africa (CSA) found itself beset by what is now familiar in most of South Africa's institutions; dysfunction, corruption, maladministration and self-interest. When then minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Nathi Mthethwa intervened in cricket at the end of October 2020 and appointed an interim board, he did so as a last resort. His intervention represented the final opportunity for CSA to fix governance issues or risk complete decline. The crisis had been brewing since the Members' Council had failed to course correct and implement the recommendations of Judge Chris Nicholson in 2012 for a governance clean-up after the 'Majola bonus scandal'. Then came Thabang Moroe's tenure first as acting CSA CEO in late 2017, and then permanently, which was nothing short of disastrous. The corruption and maladministration of this period has been well documented in the Fundudzi Report, which covered a 48-month period from 2016 to December 2019 investigating 'various governance issues and allegations relating to possible failure of controls and insufficient executive oversight within CSA'. While this was happening cricket withered on the vine, sponsors became agitated and threatened to withdraw given the chaotic state of administration. Internationally, South Africa's status has been eroded both on and off the field. Eventually the Interim Board managed to put a new governance model in place. Improving the administration remains a work in progress and a new governance model — like democracy — is imperfect, but the independence rooted in it is for the greater good of the game. Insipid leadership Within the new Board there is cricketing knowledge, but not enough, with some insipid leadership, but the corruption has been cleaned up. Some unions remain with their snouts in small troughs but the Board is working to ferret this out. The role of the South African Cricketers' Association, representing the players and dealing with player welfare, is a crucial part of the accountability puzzle. We are still paying the price for past wrongs. Working on broken trust between administrators, the board and players remains an ongoing challenge. Bavuma himself has been clear eyed in his assessment of the administration of the game and has been an astute champion of his players' needs. It is therefore easy to see how we lost our place at the top table of the ICC, how we took our eye off the ball — in this environment there was little space for the development of the game, especially at the club level. But it is not the role of CSA alone to develop a future pipeline of young players, particularly black players. Schools have a role to play, but they can only do so if properly resourced by the government. That requires money and partnerships. It also requires a focus on the importance of a holistic education, thus building a healthy society in which talent is recognised and nurtured. So, successive ministries of Sport, Arts and Culture cannot escape accountability for the failure to see the importance of equipping schools for sport. (The incumbent minister, a dangerously clownish and unserious man, lacks the insight to do anything but sloganeer, unfortunately. Sport really does deserve better, as do the arts.) Beleaguered as the administration was and managing to lose major sponsorships (who would sponsor a corrupt sporting body intent on destroying its only asset?), enter the #SA20 with Graeme Smith as its commissioner. It is this, the proceeds of the India tour and some may say a weakening exchange rate helping CSA's revenue line that keeps cricket in South Africa afloat. While the slap bang of T20 cricket is not for the purists, it is a necessary 'evil'. This short-form, India-led version of the game pays the bills and keeps most of the lights on. It is ubiquitous and has morphed into the Tens. Other abominations will no doubt follow. Test cricket the pinnacle Even Smith as commissioner would agree with Aiden Markram, who reiterated after his epic innings at Lord's this weekend that Test match cricket is the pinnacle. Nothing is like it, nothing beats it. It is the ultimate test of concentration, skill, resilience and nerve. It's a game beautifully languid at times with each session telling its own story. It is also somewhat counter-cultural to the zeitgeist of immediacy. It is a tired point but our Future Tour Programme only has a local Test match on home soil in 18 months time. A travesty. So, as ICC chairperson Jay Shah stood on the podium this weekend, there was no love lost. Led by India, the ICC with Australia and England in tow have made Test match cricket the preserve of wealthy cricket boards. This has exacerbated South Africa's already problem-riddled position. But CSA now has a unique opportunity to leverage Saturday's victory for the good of Test cricket. Will the administrators be able to step up to the plate with the appropriate gravitas required, garner support from other countries and stare down the behemoth that is India (and The Other Two)? Now may well be our narrow window of opportunity. Finally, we cannot write about this victory without speaking about the ever-present narrative of race in our country and in sport. It always hums softly in the background. As Bavuma lifted the mace — who could not be moved — this diminutive black man, so often disparagingly called a quota player, finally had the better of the naysayers. This weekend Kevin Pietersen was full of high praise for the Proteas. It was Pietersen who left South Africa because he could not be guaranteed a place in the Proteas team by then CEO of CSA, Ali Bacher. The height of white privilege, some may say. Pietersen went on to play for England, insulted our country as a 'good place for cheap holidays' and in 2016 said of Bavuma, 'I don't know who that kid is who bats six, (Bavuma), I don't know why he's batting in that line-up…' Presumably Pietersen now knows who 'that kid' is. To have a thoughtful discussion of race and cricket requires more than the often-performative Social Justice and Nation-building (SJN) process that happened during the tenure of the Interim Board of CSA, a process inherited from the previous Board under the unwise stewardship of then CSA director Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw. Sloppy It was poorly led by Dumisa Ntsebeza and shed more heat than light. There is little need for the detail to be traversed here, save to say that the process, to a large degree, eschewed complexity. The final report was sadly sloppy. Past traumas are unresolved and they are manifest within the game, its culture and how we hold memories. When one wanders the corridors of the Western Province cricket club at the iconic Newlands Stadium, for instance, it is awash with portraits of past teams and players. One is drawn again to the injustice of the past. When we hear Shukri Conrad, the current Proteas coach so unashamedly rooted in the Western Cape, speak we know his appointment was questioned in some quarters, as was his cricketing pedigree. Many are unaware that Conrad's father was a legendary cricketer in his own right and that he has been steeped in cricket since before he was born. His father Dickie Conrad was one of the finest players of that great generation of cricketers. So, for Conrad to hold the mace aloft at Lord's was a moment when life truly came full circle. Much of this Western Cape history is detailed in The Blue Book: A history of Western Province Cricket (1890-2011) (Jacana) by Andre Odendaal et al published in 2012 as well as Cricket and Conquest: The History of South African Cricket Retold: 1795-1914 (HSRC Press), first published in 2016. Odendaal has written several other authoritative books on race and cricket, including Pitch Battles: Sport, Racism and Resistance (2021) (with Peter Hain). The Blue Book was the first real attempt to consolidate the statistical history of Western Province cricket and the Cape Cobras franchise over more than 120 years. The book was a serious attempt to move away from the 'official' statistics of Western Province cricket that encompassed only the records of white players. In fact, as the book points out, there was a rich tradition of cricket in coloured, Cape Malay and black African communities in the Western Cape. Some part of that history was written a few years ago by Mo Allie in More Than a Game, but many stories remain untold, many heroes still unsung. As the book notes, 'the cricketers who played on the wrong side of the colour line in the old days inhabited deep cricket cultures'. It immediately therefore puts paid to the notion that cricket is 'the white man's game'. Boycotts and rebel tours The book traverses the colonial years, the Basil D'Oliveira saga, the 'stop the tour' boycotts and of course the rebel tour eras and the subsequent years of unity. All have their place in the difficult tapestry that is Western Province and, indeed, South African cricket. Important, though, as the book points out, is that those who played then were not merely 'passive victims of an oppressive system', they were 'characters who, through cricket, said yes to life itself'. In 1959, the WP Cricket Board (representing 'coloured' players) was formed and competed inter-provincially with the board players dominating the winnings for four seasons between 1963 and 1970. And it was during those years too that some board players found their way to playing in the English leagues: Cecil Abrahams, Coetie Neethling, the Abed brothers, Rushdie Magiet, my own father Des February and Dickie Conrad. Some remained abroad, most returned, while others like Owen Williams emigrated to Australia. The Blue Book tells us that in Langa and Gugulethu, cricket had been played for decades — William Magitshima, Cannon Ziba, Ashton Dunjwa and Ben Malamba were but a few names that made their mark in the late 1960s. This is part of Bavuma's rich history which has also been retold in Tengo Sokanyile's book, iQakamba eKapa (Cricket in Cape Town). This is a necessary retelling, not only for those of us who love cricket, its eccentricities and statistics, but also for anyone interested enough in understanding our country's past in a way that is constructive and paradoxically, despite its pain, affirming. And so, when we talk about cricket and race, we tend towards an insular focus on the post-1990s and the experiences of black players. But there were many more black players who were consigned to make their own way and give up their dreams. They did so with a lack of bitterness and dignity which Bavuma, in his captaincy and the way he conducts himself, epitomises. He is a tribute to our country and all those who went before. To use the language of 'X', therefore, this victory was for them too. DM
TimesLIVE
2 days ago
- Sport
- TimesLIVE
Did the Proteas shed the dreaded 'chokers' tag winning the WTC final?
The Proteas finally won a major trophy when they lifted the Test Mace after their five-wicket victory against Australia at Lord's in the World Test Championship (WTC) final that ended on Saturday. This brought to an end a 27-year period of pain and devastating near-misses for the national cricket team since readmission to international sport in 1991. They lost in the semifinals of the ODI World Cup a staggering five times (1992, 1999, 2007, 2015 and 2023) and in the T20 version twice (2009 and 2014), plus once in the final last year. This led to the undesired title of 'chokers'. Those who have supported the Proteas and the players over various generations have wanted to move away from the label, preferring to see the team as unfortunate and those defeats as mishaps. Their stirring WTC final win came against cricket powerhouse Australia, rebounding from a first innings 138 in a match characterised by Temba Bavuma's captaincy, batting and brave decision to bowl from the toss, Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi's bowling and Aiden Markram's epic 136. Their performance on such a stage against such opposition should go a long way to putting the Proteas' demons to bed and erasing past hurt. In sport, you're only as good as your last game, even if it was a classic for the ages like last week's Test final. Another semifinal defeat and the dreaded chokers tag will be taken out of storage, dusted off and in the headlines again. For now, the Proteas are walking on air.
Daily Maverick
2 days ago
- Sport
- Daily Maverick
Proteas return home as ICC World Test champions: A hero's welcome at OR Tambo
The South African men's cricket team touched down at OR Tambo International Airport to a great reception after claiming the ICC World Test Championship title. Fans, family, and officials gathered to celebrate the Proteas' historic triumph and to glimpse the coveted Mace in South African hands.
