Johannesburg - There was a line doing the rounds on Thursday about trying to keep up with all the absentees in English cricket at the moment.
The England and Wales Cricket Board currently has no chairman, no head coach (for the men’s national team) and no director of cricket. It was easy to snigger, until one realised South African cricket may be stuck with something similar pretty soon. For one, there is no full-time chief executive officer for Cricket SA; there may soon be no director of cricket if Graeme Smith’s contract – which expires at the end of March – isn’t extended; and, there’ll be no head coach for the men’s national team if many on the current board get their way.
On Monday, the CSA T20 Challenge starts in Gqeberha. There are 34 Proteas dotted around the eight teams, including household names such as De Kock, Miller and Phehlukwayo. Dewald Brevis, the hottest young player to emerge from the Under-19 World Cup, is in the Titans squad. There are a host of other young players throughout the competition, desperate to make an impression in a competition that will be broadcast on television. But note the tournament’s name: CSA T20 Challenge. No sponsor has attached its name to the competition. That has been the case for the past four domestic T20 tournaments CSA has put on, two of those being the Mzansi Super League. The MSL was going to take place with a sponsor this season, but was called off because of the Covid pandemic.
The last time the domestic T20 tournament had a sponsor was 2017, when RAM gave its backing. The pandemic aside, it is a very bad outlook for cricket – one of the big three sports in the country – when what is supposed to be a money-maker cannot attract sponsors, even with so many Proteas and future Proteas lined up to play.
Dean Elgar got angry last Wednesday when questioned in a press conference about Mark Boucher’s upcoming hearing and the Proteas players possibly testifying. Boucher got the hearing’s chair, advocate Terry Motau SC, to agree to a delay for that hearing because some of the players will apparently testify on Boucher’s behalf. Elgar’s annoyance was understandable. He wanted to focus on the upcoming New Zealand tour and even reflect some more on the recent success against India and instead was being asked – again – about matters off the field. “It’s bullshit,” he said, in explaining how the controversy generated by disciplinary hearings had distracted from the Proteas’ very noteworthy achievements on the field.
ALSO READ: Proteas players support coach Mark Boucher says captain Dean Elgar
Cricket SA’s new board of directors, with its majority of independent officials, is once more divided, and it is to the detriment of the sport again. To be fair to the new officials, who joined the administration last July, they inherited a volcanic mess. However, they seem to have become distracted by the remnants of the petty in-fighting which pervaded the sport in the five years that preceded their appointment as new directors.
There are a lot of elements that should have been prioritised when they started, and the appointment of a chief executive officer was one. Thabang Moroe was the last permanent chief executive, and he was suspended in December 2019. Tennis SA, took just two months to find a replacement for Richard Glover, and it seems extraordinary that CSA – which first advertised for the position shortly after the new board was appointed, and then when the deadline for applications was extended to August last year – still hasn’t found someone to fill the most important administrative position in the organisation.
Of course the Boucher situation is important, and it was critical to deal with the fall out from the Social Justice and Nation Building Report, particularly as it pertained to the Proteas coach and what was heard there about him. But that report was released in December and by that point CSA had already been unable to appoint a chief executive for three months.
It is not a good time for any sponsor to want to attach their names to South African cricket nationally. Castmore – the kit supplier for the national teams – and Betway are the most visible. But if CSA is to turn their ship around and make cricket attractive to financial backers, its got to rip the sport out of the malaise it finds itself in once again.
Mark Boucher’s misconduct hearing to take place from May 16 to 20
The players are paying attention and concern is growing amongst that crucial stakeholder group that the sport risks returning to the mess that existed from 2019 until the middle of 2021.
Cricket SA can ill-afford for that to happen – and weirdly it’s taking place while on the field there are so many good stories to tell; from the way the men’s national side has been revitalised, to a Proteas women’s team that has a very good chance of making a deep run at the World Cup, and the emergence of a couple of bright young talents who could dominate the global stage.
It might feel nice to chuckle at problems others are having – especially when they have been so disrespectful to South Africa in terms of touring here – but CSA needs to hold up a mirror to itself.
The joke could well be on it – again.