Khaya Majola Week final day

It was decided by someone, somewhere, a few years ago that the Coca-Cola Khaya Majola Week should revert to being a festival, with no overall winner in the end.

That’s what it was for many years until, in 1995, it became a limited-overs knockout tournament, in two sections with cross-pool playoffs, semi-finals and a final, a winner’s trophy, and classification games all the way down to last position.

All the good reasons why they ran it that way then apparently disappeared and it was decreed that the week would follow the philosophy of Coca-Cola’s other youth interprovincial week, the rugby Craven Week – that there is no winner and that the two teams that play the best rugby (cricket, in this case) will meet in the so called “main game” on the final day of the week.

At the Craven Week, for years now, no-one is buying the friendly, no winners or losers line, and the victorious team in the main game is called the champion team, even in the SA Rugby press releases.

The same goes at this week, really. Gauteng were called the defending champions, coming in, and they will be going home having relinquished the title they have held for the past three years.

I’ve always rather liked the Corinthian spirit in sport, but even I have to confess that times have changed and that, these days, no-one’s really interested in a competition where there is no winner.

So, why not go all the way and bring back the cup? One reason, I suppose, is that the Khaya Majola Week features all thee formats of cricket: declaration games, T20s and 50-a-side limited overs.

That’s to let the players express themselves in different ways and it would be impossible to arrive at official finalists at the end of a mixed week like that.

Still, however they got there, and official or not, we have two new finalists this year in Free State and Northerns, and no-one who was here would argue that they don’t richly deserve to be in the big game today.

They were a joy to watch and they have some serious future stars in their ranks. Note down the names Schreuder, Van Tonder, De Swardt, Visser, Msiza. For my two cents worth, we are going to hear about them again in the years to come.

It’s the final day in Bloemfontein – I’m not staying for the often anticlimactic SA Schools game tomorrow – and I will leave with my view that the best tournaments of this type are always held in the smaller centres very much intact.