Bavuma, Rabada bare their claws
Sunfoil Series champions spearheaded by quickie Kagiso Rabada
IT is not a guarantee of success, but it should not be lost on the Highveld Lions that their last three domestic four-day titles arrived with a brute of a black fast bowler as their spearhead.
For the Lions, who in previous incarnations last won the trophy as Gauteng in 1999/2000 and before that as Transvaal in the 1987/88 season, last week’s confirmation that they are the Sunfoil Series champions was as invigorating as the first few drops of a drought-breaking deluge.
Coach Geoff Toyana didn’t need reminding of the fact.
“The last time a four-day trophy came here was that time there,” he said after he swivelled his office chair around to point at a team photo of the victorious team of 2000 under Kiwi Ken Rutherford.
Toyana was part of the cast in that picture. He may have been on the edges then, but his role is very different now as he watches Kagiso Rabada from his office through carefully angled blinds wreak havoc in much the way Bajan Rod Estwick and Antiguan Kenny Benjamin did 27 and 15 seasons ago respectively.
Rabada, who earlier in the competition took nine for 33 against the Dolphins, topped the wicket-taking stakes after the first innings of the final-round matches.
He had lots of back-up, however. Hardus Viljoen, Chris Morris and Dwayne Pretorius say he is the most improved player.
All have richly contributed and all are in comforting proximity of Rabada on the list of averages.
Despite being the competi-
DEPENDABLE: Temba Bavuma has helped to provide the batting bedrock for the Sunfoil champions tion’s leading run scorer before the last round of matches, captain Stephen Cook paid tribute to his bowlers.
“We got 20 wickets in every game except last weekend. Our back-up players like Shaun Jamison, Malusi Mazibuko and Dale Deeb did really well.”
That said, captain Cook, Temba Bavuma and Neil McKenzie provided the bedrock of their batting.
“We had different emotions in the change room,” observed Cook when the title was confirmed in Durban last week.
“You had Kagiso who won it in his first full season. Neil had played for 21 years and I 15 years without winning it.
“It was a relief more than anything else. We identified it as the tournament we wanted to win most.”
McKenzie, the grizzled 39year-old recalled his bittersweet maiden campaign. “In my first year we won it but got docked points for a poor pitch in a match we lost anyway. In 1999 I left to go with the Titans so I missed then,” said McKenzie, who also won the County Championship with Durham and Somerset.
The title comes as personal triumph as much as relief for Toyana. This season there were dressing-room disputes, assistant coach Dumisa Makalima had to be offloaded and the coach had the help of a mentor.
“In my first year it was a big honeymoon,” recalled Toyana. “It became tough last year, however. I tried to find a place just to understand myself as a human being. I questioned my methods because we finished last in all the competitions.”
Toyana felt the franchise was becoming a victim of its own success because of national team call-ups.
Pleasingly for him and Cook, however, was the fact that the Lions used 22 players en route to FROM THE HOOD: Highveld Lions coach Geoff Toyana the title this season. It shows vibrancy and renewal which should stand the franchise in good stead, even with the influential Morris leaving for the Titans at the end of the season.
“As franchise coaches our sole role is to produce players for the Proteas. When you are not doing well you are going to have knives pointed at you.
“Not to prove people or a certain section of the public wrong but to show that we can also achieve and be successful.
“Pressure is what I live for. I had a tough upbringing. I come from the hood, from Soweto.”
We identified it as the tournament we wanted to win most