Lions deserve the title – Gwavu
WANDILE Gwavu doesn’t feel his Lions team got lucky in being awarded the Four-Day Series Challenge title after the 2019/20 season was suspended.
Gwavu’s Lions led the competition by eight points with two rounds of matches left and following the suspension of the season it was decided to hand them the title.
“It’s not the ideal way to get the trophy but I’ll definitely take it because of the consistency we showed,” said the Lions’ head coach. “The results show we won four games, two more than any other side.”
The Lions had lost their last two league games in January to the Dolphins and Titans, and what had been a comfortable double-digit lead, shrunk to just eight points, with the Titans, Warriors and Knights all in contention had the last two rounds of matches been played.
“I stand to be corrected, but there’s no team that’s gone through a four-day campaign with a clean slate,” said Gwavu.
“You will have tough times and we got those towards the back end in our last two games.
“But I always believed that if the resumption had occurred, we’d have gotten at least one win in our last two games which should have been enough to get us through.”
The Lions certainly didn’t have it easy during the season. While they would have expected to be without Kagiso Rabada and to an extent Temba Bavuma, they would not have anticipated also losing Dwaine Pretorius, Rassie van der Dussen, Bjorn Fortuin and Reeza Hendricks to the national team at various stages of the season.
Besides those national call-ups, they also battled with a number of injuries and the fact that only two players all eight matches and another two, seven, indicates how difficult it was for Gwavu, who took over from Enoch Nkwe after he was appointed in the Proteas set-up early in the season, to build a cohesive unit.
“It’s what cost us in the last two games; we were carrying injuries to both Malusi (Siboto) and Nono (Pongolo) and looking in the system, we didn’t have players who could offer us the same kind of quality.
“We had six players injured, and we lost Wiaan Mulder after two games. So for us to get so many results and stay at the top of the log after all that showed a lot of character,” said Gwavu.
It really was a squad effort; six different players made hundreds, only two players (Dominic Hendricks and Reeza Hendricks) scored over 400 runs and with the ball, Siboto (22), Fortuin (20) and Eldred Hawken (19) led the way in the wicket-taking department.
“Hawken was a like a breath of fresh air in the change-room,” Gwavu said about the 30-year-old paceman who joined the Lions halfway through the season, having given up on trying to earn a permanent spot in the
Titans starting team and promptly produced some of the best bowling of his career.
He claimed two ‘five-fors’ in his first two games and performed so well he’s earned himself a contract for next season.
The unsung hero for the Lions across all formats was Dominic Hendricks, who played in 16 of the Lions’ 18 matches in the FourDay Series and One-Day Cup. His solidity at the top of the order was much needed, with so many changes in personnel throughout the season.
“He’s a very simple person,” Gwavu said of the 29-year-old lefthander. “If you are clear with what you expect of him, he goes out there and just does his best. He’s never underperformed but he’s still been in and out of the Lions team in the last five seasons.
“At his age, he’s well established (as a cricketer). I thought it was unfair (that he could not earn a permanent spot) because he’d barely put a foot wrong, so this past season it was the consistency with which he played because he was given those opportunities.”
Hendricks’ overall aggregate of 480 runs and an average of 34.28 in the season doesn’t look startling, but his best innings – 150 against the Knights at the Wanderers at the start of the year – was the foundation of a vital 10-wicket win.