Cape Town – The Pakistan Cricket Board (PCB) issued a statement following an incident involving skipper Sarfraz Ahmed’s during the second One-Day International (ODI) in Durban on Tuesday.

The incident occurred in the 37th over of South Africa’s run-chase at Kingsmead when Andile Phehlukwayo got an inside edge off a Shaheen Afridi delivery that narrowly missed the stumps.

As Phehlukwayo, who was on 50 at the time, ran to the non-striker’s end, Sarfraz was heard on the stump microphone saying in Urdu: “Abey kaale, teri ammi aaj kahaan baitheen hain? Kya parwa ke aaye hai aaj?“.

When translated into English, that means: “Hey black guy, where’s your mother sitting today? What (prayer) have you got her to say for you today?”

Sarfraz has since gone on to apologise on Twitter, saying he “had no intention of upsetting anyone” and
“did not even mean for my words to be heard, understood or communicated to the opposing team or the cricket fans“.

WATCH: Pakistani great slams Sarfraz’s racist chirp

The PCB released a statement on the “unfortunate” incident on Thursday:

“The PCB expresses regret over the remark made by their captain Sarfraz Ahmed and picked up by the stump mic during the second ODI against South Africa in Durban. The PCB neither endorses nor supports any comments that have the potential to cause offence, and firmly reiterates their zero-tolerance approach towards racist comments made; in whatever context.

“This incident has also highlighted the importance and significance of player education and training at all levels. The PCB endeavors to improve their player education programmes to ensure these types of incidents do not happen again.

“Sarfaraz is one of the most respected cricketers in the world. However, captaining Pakistan is a massive honour and any hurtful remarks by any cricketer, let alone the captain, are not acceptable to the PCB.

“The PCB is confident that this incident will not affect the series, which has been played in great spirit with some excellent performances from both side. The PCB is also hopeful that the crowds will continue to turn up in big numbers for the remaining matches to support cricket.”

The third ODI between South Africa and Pakistan gets under way on Friday in Centurion (13:00).

1/2 – I wish to extend my sincere apologies to any person who may have taken offence from my expression of frustration which was unfortunately caught by the stump mic during yesterday’s game against SA. My words were not directed towards anyone in particular and…

— Sarfaraz Ahmed (@SarfarazA_54) January 23, 2019

2/3 – I certainly had no intention of upsetting anyone. I did not even mean for my words to be heard, understood or communicated to the opposing team or the cricket fans. I have in the past and will continue in future to appreciate the camaraderie of my fellow cricketers from…

— Sarfaraz Ahmed (@SarfarazA_54) January 23, 2019

3/3 – …across the globe and will always respect and honour them on and off the field.

— Sarfaraz Ahmed (@SarfarazA_54) January 23, 2019

Cape Town – Proteas batsman Reeza Hendricks acknowledges that playing in the 2019 World Cup in England would be a dream come true. 

The tournament gets underway on May 30 when South Africa take on England at The Oval, and with just 9 ODIs left for the Proteas between now and then, Hendricks will be feeling pretty good about his chances of making the squad. 

His 45 from 67 in Saturday’s loss to Pakistan in Port Elizabeth did not set the world alight, but it was another example of him scoring runs at the top of the order for the Proteas. 

With Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock almost certainly the opening pair at the World Cup next year, Hendricks is hoping to secure the No 3 berth where Aiden Markram and Rassie van der Dussen are also interested parties.

And with Van der Dussen’s innings of 93 off 101 on debut, it didn’t make Hendricks’ bid any easier.

“I was proud to see him make his debut and contribute the way he did. He played really well. I have played a few seasons with him now and I know his capabilities. He showed what he was about in PE,” Hendricks said on Lions team-mate Van der Dussen.

READ: Proteas: Pretorius’s rising CWC push

Since making his debut in August of last year, Hendricks sports an average of 28.90 in 10 ODIs.

Despite his fast start, which saw him record the fastest ton on debut, Hendricks has struggled with consistency making 102, 2, 0, 5, 1, 66, 44, 16, 8 and 45 thus far.

“I’m not looking at it like that. Yes, the World Cup is around the corner but we’ve got a series on our hands and this is an opportunity for us as well,” he said.

“Personally, I am taking it game by game and trying to contribute as well as I can in each opportunity I get. The rest will take care of itself.

“It’s a dream to represent your country at the World Cup, so it would mean a hell of a lot to me,” said the 29-year-old.

“At the end of the day, if I don’t get selected, I know that the player next to me will do the job and I will back them 100 percent.”

The second ODI starts on Tuesday (13:00) in Durban.

Cape Town – Sometimes sportspeople, their willingness so admirable but ultimately to their selfless detriment, are just too versatile to be appreciated to the maximum.

Pat Lambie, I would venture, falls pretty squarely into that category.

For generous tracts of his 56-cap Test career for the Springboks, he must have been an enormous source of comfort just for his positional flexibility within the squad: an attribute especially useful when injury impediments and other hazards suddenly hit hard, at short notice, and often a long way from home.

Modest, obliging, responsible, serene, softly (yet much of the time, it seemed) smiling … add to those behaviourally-linked hallmarks the range of backline berths where you could be close to certain he’d do a competent job at very worst, and you were really looking at the model tourist, weren’t you?

Lambie was a substitute 34 times – 60.71 percent  for South Africa, but that didn’t stop him from having some truly cracking starts in each of the demanding flyhalf and fullback positions, something that, gratifyingly, you could never take away from him.

You could almost as safely assume he would not let you down as a stop-gap inside centre.

There was even the odd, especially short-lived appearance on the wing, although – with great respect to the specialist fliers of the game – you always tended to associate Lambie more with the cerebral, strategic spots in a back division.

He was just that kind of player.

How cruel and ironic, then, that entirely justified, clearly mounting concerns about the volume and severity of head knocks he has suffered in his rugby career forced him to pull the plug on it at the age of 28, when he might instead – and perhaps with the benefit he wasn’t enjoying of greater on-field continuity – be at his prime.

Those closest to him, in particular, are likely to be relieved, an emotion that will help wash down the doubtless widespread regret.

Not the biggest physical specimen (around 86kg, and 1.77m) ever to step onto a rugby field, in a game that has become increasingly collisional, Lambie has shown no lack of guts in absorbing his various blows, and then mustering as much fresh conviction as possible to bounce back, soldier on.

But his gap periods from the game also became noticeably bigger; made it ever more of a challenge for him to regain his optimum standards and strike up desirable new levels of continuity.

It is probably more for that reason than any other that Lambie, his closing professional chapter on the books of Racing 92, did not play for his country again since last appearance against Wales in Cardiff in November 2016.

Despite that length of inactivity in the green and gold, incumbent Bok coach Rassie Erasmus was frequently enough at pains to remind that Lambie was not ruled out of his plans for the 2019 World Cup, which would have been the player’s third after contributions to both the 2011 and 2015 RWC causes.

Which right-minded coach would, after all, summarily dismiss Lambie’s credentials?

I may not be alone in regretting that, if asked to pinpoint a handful of most vivid recollections of his rugby life, the first is almost unavoidably the gruesomeness of his knockout-inducing collision with Ireland’s Southern Cape-born CJ Stander on that gloomy day at Newlands in June 2016, even if I am still firm in own mind that Stander’s challenge was much more reckless and perhaps even unavoidable at high speed than it was malicious from a player with no track record of brutal misconduct. (He reportedly later apologised face to face and very fulsomely to Lambie.)

Still, it was the sort of incident adding in a particularly harmful manner to the former Sharks favourite’s litany of concussions.

But not all Lambie “videos”, mercifully, are medically-related nasties.

Perhaps the most memorable, rugby-orthodox one is his game-deciding, beyond-comfort-zone penalty kick against the All Blacks, hitherto on a run of 22 unbeaten fixtures, at Ellis Park in 2014.

He had only been on the park for quarter of an hour, having replaced Handre Pollard at pivot, when the Springboks, behind the halfway line, were awarded a tantalising, 78th-minute penalty.

His body language extraordinarily assured considering the magnitude of the kick, Lambie hit it straight as a knife and cleared the crossbar with plenty to spare, to the near-demented delight of the Johannesburg crowd as the Boks earned a famous 27-25 victory.

It was an example of the extent of inner strength lurking just beneath the baby face.

Again flying a little in the face of his public persona, he was also capable of being merciless assassin, a major breaker of rival-fan hearts.

A crystal-clear case in point was his virtual one-man show – as a raw 20-year-old at the time – for the Sharks in the 2010 Currie Cup final against Western Province at Kings Park.

In a beautifully rounded, utterly resourceful performance, Lambie notched 25 points of his own in an unexpectedly dominant 30-10 thrashing of the Cape foes, including two tries.

So was he, ultimately, a better No 10 or 15?

It is a question with no truly definitive answer, and that is really a tribute all of its own.

But he was the polished, seemingly ever-pleasant and plucky Patrick Jonathan Lambie and that, for purposes of rugby memory, was well good enough.

*Follow our chief writer on Twitter: @RobHouwing

Cape Town – It’s derby time in South Africa and on Friday all PRO14 roads will lead to Port Elizabeth where the Southern Kings and Cheetahs will take centre stage in their first encounter of the season, which is also the only match of the weekend.

The clash will be significant for both teams, as the Cheetahs will look to maintain their unbeaten run against their South African counterparts after winning all three previous matches between them in the competition, while the Southern Kings will be desperate to register their second victory of the season.

The Free Staters are fresh off a morale-boosting 27-12 victory against Zebre Rugby Club in Italy – their third victory in five outings – and this is expected to boost their confidence going into the clash.

The home side, in turn, will have their sights set on bouncing back from their disappointing 38-0 defeat against Edinburgh in Scotland, especially after an encouraging spell in their four previous encounters in which they suffered three defeats by seven points or less.

The Cheetahs have been superior on attack and defence this season, with the Bloemfontein outfit having scored 36 tries and conceding 44, while the Southern Kings scored 28 and conceded 52. 

These statistics, however, could have little significance, especially with the hosts mindful of the fact that they went down by only nine points the last times the sides crossed paths in the competition in April in Port Elizabeth.

Their match-day teams have yet to be announced, but the Southern Kings will be particularly wary of Cheetahs’ try-scoring machine, Rabz Maxwane, who is the top try-scorer in the competition with eight tries, but they will also keep a close eye on the hosts’ Yaw Penxe, who is also on the top try-scorers list with five tries.

There was good news on the injury front this week for the Southern Kings as Masixole Banda (leg) and Tertius Kruger (hand) were declared fit after suffering injuries in their last match, while Sibusiso Sithole has recovered from a long-term knee injury, and will be available for selection.

Cape Town – You know things are going quite rosily when “who to leave out” shapes up as a looming hazard.

That will be the case for the currently buzzing South African Test team in mid-February when – following the limited-overs obligations against battered, now clean-swept five-day foes Pakistan – they are next in action at that level against Sri Lanka.

As the second Subcontinent side to arrive in quick succession this summer, two Tests are scheduled against them: from February 13 at Kingsmead and February 21 at St George’s Park.

The venues alone are enough to remind that the Proteas, who duly polished off the Pakistanis in the third Test at the Wanderers by 107 runs on Monday for a pleasing 3-0 outcome, will need to make certain tactical adjustments to their line-up for the ‘Lankan challenge.

Both grounds usually cry out for employment of at least one specialist spinner: something South Africa bypassed in each of the last two Tests (Newlands and Bullring) as they fielded a formidable, unrelenting and four-strong pace battery each time.

Even if they do somehow find a way – through a batting sacrifice – to stick to a quartet of quickies plus the return of frontline spinner Keshav Maharaj, the Proteas may, by then, have emerging young Lungi Ngidi (15 wickets at 19.53 from four Test caps, don’t forget) fully fit again for consideration.

For the time being, of course, it would be dreadfully difficult to omit any of incumbents Kagiso Rabada, Dale Steyn, Vernon Philander and Duanne Olivier.

Collectively, they were just too hot to handle by the Pakistanis, even if the series did sometimes throw up pitch conditions that were a little more “up and down” than some five-day purists would wish.

It is an amazing thought that Olivier would probably not have seen any action at all in the just-completed series had Ngidi been available … instead he was a revelation with his well-back-of-a-length brutality, snapping up 24 wickets at an average of 14.70.

That was the best tally by a South African in a three-Test series since Charlie Llewellyn’s 25 against Australia some 116 years ago, and a sure-fire passage to his player-of-the-series mantle.

He has simply got to feature at the outset against the sixth-ranked Sri Lankans, quite likely to be no less assured against his brand of aggression than the Pakistanis, only one rung lower on the ICC ladder, were.

With so much enviable firepower on the bowling front for head coach Ottis Gibson and his lieutenants to chew on, how strongly to staff the batting will be an associated conundrum in the next Test series.

It remains the one department that remains broadly less than convincing in the Proteas’ quest – they are now second in the rankings, ahead of England – to advance to No 1 in the world.

So it would be overly blasé of them to believe they could simply cull a batsman next month and bring in-form Quinton de Kock up the order to six from his present seven: statistics show that he is notably happiest in the latter “Gilchrist” berth.

De Kock was one of only two century-makers for the Proteas in the Pakistan series – though the tourists got none, Asad Shafiq’s 88 their highest individual score – with the other being captain Faf du Plessis, suspended for the Wanderers Test.

Du Plessis must naturally be fitted in again for the Durban Test, which means someone from the current batting line-up will make way, even if South Africa don’t weaken their stocks by one stroke-player in a shift of balance to their XI.

Who would that be? Maybe now Theunis de Bruyn is the favourite to go, as Johannesburg debutant Zubayr Hamza showed promise with his first-innings 41.

De Bruyn’s series against Pakistan does not look good on paper: 112 runs at 18.66 with a best of 49.

Career-wise, he is now averaging a shade over 20 after nine Test appearances, which is well less than a “nailed down” situation.

Interestingly, though, SA-born former England superstar Kevin Pietersen, a SuperSport pundit during the just-completed series, believes the tall right-hander warrants more time and patience from the wise men.

“He may have played a loose shot or two, but I saw enough of De Bruyn to say ‘hey, hey, hey … just hang on with this kid’,” Pietersen was quoted as saying.

While still some way from the finished article, the South African Test team cannot be in bad health with such thorny composition issues to deal with in the next few weeks.

*Follow our chief writer on Twitter: @RobHouwing