Proteas set to bloom

PROTEAS captain Faf du Plessis had every reason to be cheerful when he jetted into Cape Town on Friday.

Du Plessis left the tour of Sri Lanka to have work done on his injured shoulder, but he was clearly very pleased with the ODI series victory.

Yes, the Proteas lost the last two matches, including a dramatic collapse yesterday, but when you have wrapped up a series 3-0, it’s only human to lose a bit of focus thereafter.

“The vision myself and Gibbo (coach Ottis Gibson) have is all about how we are going to win the World Cup.

“I think you can see the guys are playing an exciting brand of cricket. There are a few young faces playing fearless cricket,” said the skipper.

Those “few young faces” Du Plessis was referring to would include Reeza Hendricks, Lungi Ngidi and Tabraiz Shamsi, all of whom played key roles in the ODI series victory.

The emergence of Hendricks, in particular, will have warmed the hearts of all South African cricket fans, as there is a huge gap to be filled in the top order after the retirement of superstar AB de Villiers.

Ngidi has formed a potent combination with fellow fast bowler Kagiso Rabada, and spinner Shamsi will be able to add much-needed variety to the South African bowling attack.

And there have been other positives too. After worries about their form, Hashim Amla and JP Duminy have showed that they are not yet ready for the scrapheap.

At their best, Amla and Duminy are two stroke players of the highest order and they would love to have a glorious swansong at next year’s World Cup in England.

Because, in the end, as Du Plessis pointed out, it is all about the World Cup. We all know the years and years of bitter disappointment the Proteas have endured at successive World Cups, and this team, like others before them, will be desperate to wipe those nightmares out of our collective memory banks.

So far, so good then. There is a strong positive vibe from the South African camp at the moment, and with 16 ODIs left until the start of the World Cup, the Proteas have the opportunity to build on this current momentum and arrive at the World Cup fully primed for a strong shot at glory. WORLD Elephant Day yesterday provided an excellent opportunity to ponder the future of this great, majestic animal. The prognosis is stark: the elephant populations are nearing a critical point and unless drastic action is undertaken, they will disappear from our wilds. And so shall part of humankind’s heritage.

In 1800 there may have been as many as 26 million elephants in Africa alone; a century ago there were an estimated 5 million. Today, there are less than half a million. On average, at least 55 elephants are killed by poachers every day for their tusks – that’s one every 25 minutes.,

Their range has shrunk exponentially over the years, and they are now extinct in the Middle

East, on the Indonesian island of Java, northern Africa and most of China. Almost everywhere, these majestic nomads are restricted to ever-decreasing pockets of land.

The number of wild elephants has dropped by almost a third in the last decade alone and around 20 000 are still being slaughtered for their tusks each year. The international trade in illegal ivory is estimated at more than R300 billion each year.

Why are elephants important to our lives and to nature? The National Geographic, explains eloquently: “Elephants are vital to the web of life in Africa. As a keystone species, they help balance all the other species in their ecosystem, opening up forest land to create firebreaks and grasslands, digging to create water access for other animals, and leaving nutrients in their wake. Sometimes called the ‘megagardeners of the forest’, elephants are essential to the dispersal of seeds that maintain tree diversity.”

And more importantly, elephants are part of humanity’s heritage.

The ivory trade is a major cause of declining numbers of wild elephants, as poachers continue to hunt endangered species for their valuable tusks.

In South Africa, the number of elephants killed by poachers has jumped by almost a third, according to official figures. A total of 67 elephants were poached from Kruger National Park, and one in KwaZulu-Natal, last year. This is a leap from 46 elephants the year before.

Compared to the numbers of rhino poached in South Africa – 1 054 in 2016 and 1 028 in 2017 – the numbers look promising, but it’s just a matter of time before poachers turn their full attention to ivory.

The demand for ivory must be drastically reduced, and the elephant’s habitat robustly protected – or we face a big battle to halt the decline in elephant numbers.