Worrying silence on questions about new Gauteng CEO’s experience

Why don’t the Central Gauteng Lions want to discuss Jono Leaf-Wright’s appointment?

TELFORD VICE in London

DOES the incoming Central Gauteng Lions (CGL) chief executive have the required skills?

It’s a simple question. But no-one involved seems prepared to answer it.

The requirements for the position, as advertised by the CGL, stipulated a “post-graduate degree in business management, business administration, sports management or a related field with a minimum of five years’ experience or a bachelor’s degree with 10 years of senior management experience”.

Jono Leaf-Wright was the successful candidate and will take over from Greg Fredericks on October 1.

“Please refer all matters/queries to the GCB [Gauteng Cricket Board, the CGL’s former name],” Leaf-Wright said in a text message on Friday after he was asked whether he ticked the boxes.

TMG Digital had contacted the CGL marketing and communications office the day before and did so again this Thursday. As yet no response has been received.

Thabang Moroe, Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) chief executive, was part of the panel that interviewed those vying for the job.

He was consulted through a CSA spokesperson, who came back on Thursday with: “[Moroe has] asked that you take this question to the CGL president and his team as this is a Gauteng matter and not a CSA one.” 

CGL president Jack Madiseng was then approached. He has yet to respond.

Leaf-Wright’s appointment has been met with approval in various quarters — no mean feat considering the fractious nature of cricket in South Africa and in Gauteng in particular.

The 37-year-old has built a solid reputation as a coach, which is highlighted on his company’s website: “Jono Leaf-Wright is a teacher, and he holds a national level three coaching certificate.

“He is currently a ‘scout’ in the Gauteng region for talent at school level for [CSA] and is on the Gauteng Cricket Coaches’ Association.

“Jono has gained international coaching experience as he has been a member of the coaching staff for the Royal Challengers Bangalore [Indian Premier League] team, who were bronze medallists in IPL 2010, and silver medalists in IPL 2009 and IPL 2011.”

The site also carries a ringing endorsement from Ali Bacher: “I have seen my grandson being coached by Jono over the last two years, and I can honestly say that I find him to be the most enthusiastic and competent coach.”

So far, so impressive. But Leaf-Wright’s track record as an administrator — particularly at a high level — is more difficult to gauge because there is little available evidence of it.

That will ring alarm bells considering he is replacing one of the most seasoned suits in the game in one of the most senior roles.

Fredericks, 65 and from the Eastern Cape, is also a teacher, and holds a Masters degree in education from Manchester University.

He has strong and honourable struggle credentials and was a member of South Africa’s first democratically elected Parliament and a chief director in the sport ministry.

Fredericks worked on the 2010 men’s football World Cup and has been in his Gauteng’s chief executive since October 2013.

“The board did not take up the task of appointing a CEO lightly and was well aware of the attributes on operational, commercial and amateur cricket level that the ideal candidate would have to have,” Moroe, then president of the GCB, was quoted as saying in a release at the time.

“Fredericks brings a wealth of experience and I am confident that his contribution will take the GCB to the next level.”

His leaving inspired this tribute on social media from former teammate Geoff Gamiet: “I feel so privileged to have you as a friend, Greg. You are such a humble person blessed with extraordinary talents and wisdom.

“You have transformed every single organisation or institution that you came into contact with.

“From our early rugby and cricket days in Parkside, East London, you showed a high level of competitiveness. You were always prepared to serve and not to be served.”

Leaf-Wright acknowledged in a CGL release on August 18 announcing his appointment that he has “big shoes to fill”.

Indeed. So he, or CSA or the CGL, should reassure cricketminded South Africans that his feet are the right size.

First published by TMG Digital.

SA to face best Test team, home or away, in India

TELFORD VICE in London

INDIA have become the most unbeatable men’s team in Test cricket at home under Virat Kohli’s captaincy. And away.

Since Kohli took charge, in Adelaide in December 2014, India have won 29 of their 51 Tests.

That 17 of those successes have been achieved in the 23 matches they have played at home is no surprise.

But it’s a measure of Kohli’s leadership that they have won a dozen of their 28 away Tests with him at the helm.

Discounting the complication of Pakistan playing their home games at neutral venues, no team have had a better victory rate during Kohli’s captaincy — whether measured overall, home or away — than India.

“It’s a responsibility that I’m fulfilling,” Kohli said after his and India’s latest triumph, in Antigua on Sunday, when they beat West Indies by 318 runs with a day to spare.

“It’s a blessing that I am in a position to contribute to my team in more than one way.

“Nothing is possible without the team. I am taking the decisions but it is up to the individuals to do the execution.”

South Africa will step into this scenario next month, when they travel to India for a tour of three T20s and as many Tests.

The white-ball stuff comes first and will carry unusual significance with a T20 World Cup looming in Australia in October next year.

But it’s the Test series, which starts in Visakhapatnam on October 2, that will ring with relevance and resonance for six of South Africa’s players in particular.

Faf du Plessis, Temba Bavuma, Dean Elgar, Vernon Philander, Dane Piedt and Kagiso Rabada, all members of the Test squad of 14, are the survivors from South Africa’s last series in India, in November 2015.

Their supporters will remember that rubber for the poor batting their team delivered on even poorer pitches to go down 3-0.

But India’s fans will mark those matches as Kohli’s first series as captain in his own backyard, which followed two games in Australia, one in Bangladesh and three in Sri Lanka.

India won only two of those matches, which put Kohli under pressure when he came home.

How well he has answered the questions. And how big a role South Africa played in helping him do so.

Almost four years on more questions are posed. But, in the wake of a dismal World Cup and an unsettled landscape across the game in their country, these are for the South Africans to answer.

First published by TMG Digital.

The messy truths behind Ben Stokes’ ‘beautifully constructed thing’

“It’s a very simple question, and the answer could be yes or no. I could say yes glibly because I have no idea what’s going to happen the next two games.” – David Gower on who might win the Ashes.

TELFORD VICE in London

THREE slips, point, cover, mid-off, widish mid-on, short midwicket, short fine leg. The scores are level. The sun is high. The moment is nigh.

Joel Wilson is the furthest man from the bat, marooned on exile island at square leg.

Headingley is heady with hedonism. At least, with Yorkshire’s idea of the stuff.

Here comes Pat Cummins, angling with intent towards the crease. He fathers a wayward brat of a delivery: short, wide, veering wider still.

Two days earlier, presented with a wide half-volley by James Pattinson, Ben Stokes hacked wretchedly at a ball he could barely reach and splintered a catch to slip.

Not this time. Stokes, not the first time in exactly five-and-a-half hours at the wicket, finds his inner Zorro and produces a majestic slash that scolds and scalds the ball in equal measure and sends it screaming between point and cover.

Four runs. An unwinnable game won. The Ashes alive.

Stokes’ physical momentum keeps him moving forward. Then his mental momentum takes over and his right hand punches the sky. His bat, held in his left hand, starts to point upward to complete his roared salute to success, at the instant the man at point’s backside hits the ground in defeat.

That man is Nathan Lyon, who was also on his backside the over before — this time in the middle of the pitch and in disbelief at Wilson deciding that a delivery that would have hit the stumps had Stokes not put his pad in its path would, in the umpire’s opinion, not have hit the stumps.

By then, Australia had wasted their last referral, which, had they used it, would have ended the match in their favour. By then, Lyon had dropped the ball at the non-striker’s end with Jack Leach in the other hemisphere trying to scramble back, botching a runout that would have made Australia the winners. By then, Stokes was writing his own script.

There’s poetry in the point that the number on the back of Lyon’s shirt is 67 — the same amount of runs England were dismissed for in their first innings, when they seemed to have as much chance of winning as Donald Trump and Brexit’s Leave campaign.

But this is about Stokes, who joined Joe Root with 218 required and 12-and-a-half overs remaining on Saturday, and proceeded to not score off 48 of the 50 balls he faced before stumps. Then Root got out five-and-a-half overs into Sunday’s play, when Stokes had scored three singles off — here’s that number again — 67 deliveries.

Seven more balls would be bowled to Stokes before he made his first boundary, hammered through midwicket off Lyon. Poor bastard.

Stokes would hit 10 more. And eight sixes. And score an undefeated 135 to win it by one wicket.

So far, so superhuman. Part of what sets his innings apart is the humanity that shone out of photographs from the dressingroom that were posted on social media in the aftermath.

One shows Stokes, still padded up, sitting with his hips shoved forward, the apex of his curved spine slumped against the wall, and tugging his cap over his eyes trying to shut out the world.

In another, he sits glaring up at the camera like a slave from his oar deep in a Roman galley. The detritus of the day is scattered around him. Amid it, relegated to the floor, between his ankles, stands a bottle of the champagne he has won as the player of the match. Tellingly, it is unopened.

If you had seen these pictures without knowing Stokes had played the innings he had, and done what he had done for his team, you would have thought he had been part of the losing side. Winning isn’t everything, his expression says.

Outside the dressingroom the world is still giddy, and will remain so well into the next day.

“It’s not about how many runs [you score],” Graham Gooch tells the BBC. “It’s when your performance wins the game for your team. This performance is one of the greatest in English Test history.”

Gooch was there in July 1981 when another allrounder came to Headingley and stole victory from Australia.

Ian Botham will be remembered most for taking guard with England, who followed on in that match, 122 runs behind with five wickets down. He was 149 not out when they were dismissed with a lead of 129 — not enough to stop the Aussies from winning, of course. Brexit … Trump …

Bob Willis took 8/43, and Australia were dismissed for 111.

David Gower was also there, and, inevitably, was pressed to compare the two innings.

“This was better,” he said of Stokes’ effort. “The difference is that Ian’s innings in ’81 was born out of frustration and hope.

“It started as a bit of fun and it grew into something special; brilliant nonetheless. But Stokes’ whole innings has to be put in context. When he came to the crease on day three he battled out the last 35 minutes; hardly scored a run.

“At the start [of Sunday’s play], same thing: he knew there was a lot riding on the day. When he saw Joe Root go quickly his shoulders were big enough to bear the burden.”

For Gower, Stokes’ innings was “a beautifully constructed thing, a thing of beauty”. Leach, who entered, stage left with England nine down and still needing 73, was “a budding cult hero”, and the matchwinning stand was “impossible”.

So, David, can England win the Ashes?

“It’s a very simple question, and the answer could be yes or no. I could say yes glibly because I have no idea what’s going to happen the next two games.”

Gower speaks English with the same clean, elegant lines he brought to the beautiful business of left-handed batting. Maybe that’s why his contract with Sky will not be renewed after the Ashes.

Commentary has become about shooting quantity first and asking questions about quality later. Here, for instance, is Alastair Cook in the afterglow of Sunday’s spectacle: “That’s the most extraordinary innings ever, ever played by an Englishman.”

How would Cook know, considering he wasn’t alive for the first 608 of England’s 1 014 Tests? And we cannot leave unquestioned the assertion that Stokes is an Englishman considering he spent the first 12 of his 28 years in New Zealand.

Good thing Geoffrey Boycott qualified his social media post: “I’ve seen some remarkable cricket moments in my life but that is the best I’ve seen in over 50 years.”

Boycott wasn’t at Kingsmead in February, so he cannot be beaten with the same stick rightfully being taken to the too many people wondering whether Stokes’ innings is the best yet seen without considering Kusal Perera’s claim to that title.

Perera made an undefeated 153 to help earn Sri Lanka the honour of becoming the first Asian team to win a series in South Africa. 

At least Stokes scored runs for England legitimately this time, unlike in the World Cup final against his native country at Lord’s in July — when a crucial run was erroneously awarded in the confusion of the ball skewing off the back of his bat and going for four as he dived to make his ground. 

If Stokes is hardly English, England’s star bowler, Barbados born and raised Jofra Archer, who played his first game in the country in April 2014, is not even close.

The dust has hardly settled on long, winding, racially charged arguments that changing the rules to lever Archer into the selection frame — before him the qualification period for foreigners was seven years, now it’s three — “wouldn’t be fair, morally”, as Chris Woakes said.

You won’t hear that kind of talk now that Archer is concussing opposition batters for a living. It seems he has also hit the nation on the head and caused collective amnesia.

The truth of it is that Stokes and Archer are fine players, and that it’s good for themselves and the game that they are proving as much.

Another truth is that Leach, whose only run in the hour he batted for on Sunday tied the scores, is a walking metaphor for the Englishness of England’s team. “He’s probably not going to make a career as a cricketer on Love Island,” was how cricket writer Matthew Engel described Somerset’s own bespectacled slow left-armer on the Beeb on Monday.

Leach spent more time removing his helmet and cleaning his glasses on Sunday than he did actually doing the hard work of batting — which he left to the foreign-born hired help at the other end.

Colonialism, then, is not dead. More happily, neither is the Ashes. 

First published by Times SELECT. 

Du Plessis has point to prove with Kent

Had Kent not come calling Du Plessis might have been all padded up with no place to go, in T20 terms, until the Mzansi Super League in November and December.

TELFORD VICE in London

NOT a lot would seem to ride on Faf du Plessis playing for Kent in what’s left of the men’s county T20 competition.

But he could have a point to prove about his white-ball future in the awkward lull between South Africa’s disappointing 2019 World Cup and the hope for improvement offered by next year’s T20 equivalent.

Du Preez has signed to play in Kent’s last two group games, against Gloucestershire in Canterbury on Thursday against Essex at Chelmsford the next day.

He replaces Afghanistan’s Mohammad Nabi, who is required for international duty in a T20 triangular involving Zimbabwe in Bangladesh next month. 

Du Plessis will stay on if the county make it to the knockout rounds, which start next Wednesday with the first quarter-final and end in the final at Edgbaston on September 21.

Kent are currently third in their group, and so locked and loaded for the play-offs.

But they have suffered three losses and two washouts in their last five games.

So Du Plessis has an opportunity to remind people why he was South Africa’s leading batter in a World Cup campaign that will be remembered for his team’s failure to launch: they lost five of their eight completed games.

And to put some meat on the bones of what he told the Mumbai Mirror earlier this month: “I’m still the captain of the T20 team and very much part of it.”

By then, Quinton de Kock had been named to lead South Africa in their T20 series in India next month because Du Plessis had agreed to play in the Euro T20 Slam, which was subsequently cancelled.

Had Kent not come calling Du Plessis might have been all padded up with no place to go, in T20 terms, until the Mzansi Super League (MSL) in November and December.

That wouldn’t have been the best situation for a player and captain who wants to stay in form and relevant, particularly in this furiously fluid time in the game in South Africa.

On Tuesday, for instance, the Jozi Stars replaced the coach who took them to the title last season.

He is Enoch Nkwe — who is now South Africa’s interim team director for the tour to India, and by the look of things might be in the job beyond that.

Hence Donovan Miller, a former Jamaica under-19 player who is currently part of England’s Ashes staff and worked on their successful World Cup effort, and was part of the Stars’ retinue last year, has been appointed head coach.   

“I’ve played with some of the squad members in the past and look forward to joining up with all the guys again,” Du Plessis was quoted as saying in a Kent release on Monday.

Two of them are fellow Affies alum and former Titans teammate Heino Kuhn as well as Hardus Viljoen.

“He is a world-class batsman and, along with his leadership skills, he will be a major asset to our young side as we seek to progress to the quarter-finals and beyond in this year’s competition,” Kent director of cricket Paul Downton was quoted as saying.

Du Plessis has indicated that next year’s T20 World Cup in Australia will be his international swansong.

His journey there starts in Canterbury on Thursday.

First published by TMG Digital.

SA will face sternest T20 test in India

“If our batsmen don’t have a touch game to go with their power game they will struggle.” Herschelle Gibbs on South Africa’s T20 series in India next month. 

TELFORD VICE in London

T20 cricket is supposed to be all about surprises, but it isn’t especially noteworthy that South Africa’s men’s team have lost more than 60% of their games against India.

Neither is it news that they have nothing to show for the fact that they have won close on 60% of all their T20s.

The format seems bespoke for the Indians’ confident, dramatic style of play, and it doesn’t hurt that the country is home to T20’s biggest, boldest, brashest bash annually.

And if the Saffers are playing in the tournament tell the taxi to come back well before the final to take them to the airport. So far, anyway.

It won’t make South Africans feel any better about all that to know that the champions in four of the six editions of what will be called the T20 World Cup next year have been won by sides who have been successful in less than half their matches: England, West Indies — twice — and Sri Lanka.

Those teams have also lost more than half of their T20s against South Africa. Worse yet, in trophy terms, of the 54 other sides who have played T20s at international level only India and Pakistan — the other two world champions — and Afghanistan are more successful in the format overall than the South Africans.

Their next attempt to change all that starts in Dharamsala three weeks from Sunday, when their opponents in the first of three T20s will be those confident, dramatic Indians.

Next stop home for three against England and three more against Australia, all of them in February.

Then it’s off to Australia for the T20 World Cup, where South Africa’s first game is in Perth on October 24 — against India, who will be supported to the rafters by their 40 000 compatriots who the Aussie tourism authorities estimate will turn up for the tournament. 

Considering 15 000 Indians travelled to Australia for the 2015 World Cup, and that it looked and sounded like Virat Kohli’s side were the only team in town when they played South Africa in Melbourne, the prospect of more than double that number arriving next year is arresting.

It also lends weight to next month’s rubber, which despite not matching what will be on offer at the T20 World Cup in terms of conditions will nonetheless provide the sternest test the South Africans will face before the tournament.

Of their squad, only Quinton de Kock — the captain for the series — David Miller and Kagiso Rabada have played T20 internationals in India.

But between them the 14 selected have appeared 164 times in the big, bold, brash bash above, the Indian Premier League (IPL). That said, De Kock and Miller own 134 games of the collective experience and only six players have made it to the IPL.

That cut no ice with Herschelle Gibbs: “There’s no more excuses to play poorly in Indian conditions what with all the experience of IPL cricket.”

So, what do South Africa need to do to improve their success rate in India?

“If they can’t rotate the strike against the spinners they’re going to be in trouble,” Gibbs said. “That’s been our biggest issue going there.

“Also, if our batsmen don’t have a touch game to go with their power game they will struggle.”

It will hearten South Africans that the leading run-scorer in T20s this year among all the players on both sides is Reeza Hendricks, and that 2019’s top wicket-taker in the format in both squads is Andile Phehlukwayo.

But that’s a crude way to try and make sense of the most rapidly evolving form of the game, where margins between teams and players are shrinking so much and so fast.

It’s a bit like designing a new anti-theft device for cars today, and watching car thieves crack it tomorrow.

Now there’s a surprise.

First published by the Sunday Times.

Leading Edge: Enoch Nkwe deserves better

Geoff Toyana and Mpho Sekhoto – frontline batters both – took guard at Nos. 9 and 10 in their only innings and didn’t bowl a delivery between them. Ah, weren’t those the days?

TELFORD VICE in London

IT’S trapped in the amber of another time, perhaps another world. At least, it seems that way.

It’s an artefact and a cautionary tale, and a reminder that, after everything, we’re dealing with human beings. It’s a scorecard from a game played almost 17 years ago at the Wanderers.

Through a gap in the stands to the left at the Golf Course End you could see a glimpse of grass even greener and plusher than one of the most green, plush outfields anywhere in the game. Much further to the right the bluegums swayed and spoke in the breeze high above some of the most sun and storm struck bleachers in all of sport.

A gaggle of reporters were gathered in the always refreshingly open-air pressbox above the Corlett Drive End. It was absolutely unbelievable that, five months to the day after that game, much of the stand below them would be decked out as temporary accommodation for the hordes of journalists who would turn up to cover the 2003 men’s World Cup final.

All of which is the same today, even though so much has changed. Not least that the punters have long since got their seats back from the press.

Ian Howell and Craig Schoof were the umpires for that four-day match, and thereby hangs its own history. Howell was the kind of left-arm slow bowler you just don’t see anymore, and a damn fine one. Schoof was the son of Dudley and the nephew of Ossie, famous men in white coats both.

Stephen Cook, Adam Bacher, Grant Elliott and Daryll Cullinan were one team’s top four. They had David Terbrugge and Clive Eksteen in their attack. 

Derek Crookes, Andrew Hall, Pierre de Bruyn, Albie Morkel, Dylan Jennings and André Nel were in the other dressingroom.

All were products of the unbearable whiteness of too much about the game in South Africa.

Not that everybody involved was white. Johnson Mafa shared the new ball. In the first innings anyway: he didn’t bowl in the second dig. Geoff Toyana and Mpho Sekhoto — frontline batters both — took guard at Nos. 9 and 10 in their only innings and didn’t bowl a delivery between them. Ah, weren’t those the days?

None of which has turned out to be as topical as what happened in the 11th over after lunch on the first day, when a gangly kid of 19 armed with, it seemed, nothing more than soft eyes and a big smile — and, it turned out, an excellent technique — took the long walk down those ridiculously elongated stairs and onward to the middle to make his first-class debut.

He was from Soweto. Or the other side of the world compared to the Wanderers. He had, by then, played for Gauteng’s under-19 and B sides and in a pre-season friendly — all with limited batting success. Indeed, he had made a better impression with his medium pace.

But that was to change over the course of that day and the next, when he spent more than six hours at the crease, faced 297 balls, hit 20 fours, shared a century stand with Cullinan, and scored 106.

His name was, and is, Enoch Nkwe.

Or is it? Some sources list him as Enoch Thabiso Nkwe, others as Thabiso Enoch Nkwe. Was South African cricket uncivilised enough not even 17 years ago that it couldn’t be bothered to get the names of first-class players the right way round?

Cricket was to afford Nkwe only 41 more first-class matches, in which he scored two more centuries. Life took him to the Netherlands and brought him home, but injury meant he never had the playing career he should have.

He deserved better then and he deserves better now. He represents so much but also nothing besides himself, and he deserves a fair chance at doing both to the best of his ability.

It’s time to escape the amber and to look past the towering bluegums and the impossibly green golf course and to see the truth as it is.

The moment is yours, Mr Nkwe. 

First published by the Sunday Times.

Ontong sole survivor of Gibson era

TELFORD VICE in London

JUSTIN Ontong will be the sole survivor of South Africa’s men’s team’s previous coaching staff in India in September and October.

For now, Ontong is still the fielding coach — as he was during South Africa’s worst ever World Cup campaign, in England from May to July, when they won only three of their eight completed games and were the first of the 10 competing teams to be eliminated from the running for the semi-finals. 

That brought the end of Ottis Gibson’s tenure as head coach, along with that of batting coach Dale Benkenstein and spin bowling consultant Claude Henderson. 

Enoch Nkwe has been named team director for the three T20s and as many Tests South Africa will play in India.

A Cricket South Africa (CSA) release on Thursday said Lance Klusener would serve as batting coach for the T20s — but did not fill the vacancy for the Tests — and that Vincent Barnes would be the bowling coach.

All of the appointments are for the India tour only.

“[Klusener’s] record as one of the best allrounders in the world, particularly in white-ball cricket, during his playing career speaks for itself, and he also has extensive coaching experience both at franchise and international level,” the release quoted acting director of cricket Corrie van Zyl as saying.

“[Barnes] also has extensive coaching experience at international level and his knowledge of playing conditions in India will make his contribution invaluable.”

As for the gaping hole among the tracksuits: “Enoch is targeting a batting coach who has extensive knowledge of Indian conditions for the Test series and we will be in a position to announce this successful candidate shortly.”

Klusener, the Dolphins head coach from 2012 to 2016, turned down an offer turned down an offer to be Bangladesh’s bowling coach in 2010. He was Zimbabwe’s batting coach in 2016.

Barnes, South Africa’s fulltime bowling coach from 2003 to 2011, is currently in charge of bowling at CSA’s high performance centre.

First published by TMG Digital.

CSA boss Thabang Moroe was on panel that picked Gauteng’s new CEO

CGL say CSA have also been party to making other appointments in their organisation.

TELFORD VICE in London

THABANG Moroe was on the panel that interviewed candidates vying to become the Central Gauteng Lions’ (CGL) new chief executive.

Moroe’s presence in that capacity will add to the growing belief that he is building an axis of power that goes beyond his already wide-ranging authority as Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) chief executive.

Other administrators were aghast to learn of Moroe’s involvement in what was ostensibly an independent process.

But the CGL have defended his intervention, and say CSA have been party to making other appointments in their organisation.

The CGL did not answer directly when asked why Moroe was on the panel and what his role was. They did, however, confirm his presence.

A formal response to those questions read, in part: “The CGL strives to adhere to good corporate governance in all its endeavours including recruitment of all personnel.”

The response detailed the composition of the forums the CGL assembled to choose their cricket services manager, mini-cricket and schools cricket administrator, marketing and communications manager, chief financial officer — all of which included CSA representatives.

“A similar approach was adopted for the appointment of the CGL’s CEO and panel make-up inclusive of CGL board members as well as CSA’s chief executive officer,” the CGL wrote.

Asked the same questions through CSA’s media structures, Moroe’s relayed reply was: “Our interviews are a dynamic process designed to interrogate different areas of skills to identify the best candidate for a position,” Moroe was quoted as saying.

“Our panels consist of a multitude of personnel across CSA head office, the different provincial unions and others within the cricketing fraternity.

“We have honed this style as the best practice of recruiting from within the cricketing system.”

Senior administrators took a less positive view of what they saw as Moroe’s meddling, labelling it as unheard of in their experience, saying he should busy himself with bigger issues, and questioning whether he would be willing to perform the same function with other affiliates.  

Moroe has become the most powerful figure in the game in the country in the wake of the sweeping restructure that followed South Africa’s poor performance at the men’s World Cup in England from May to July, when Faf du Plessis’ team lost five of their eight completed games.

The CGL were convinced, by CSA, to defer electing board members at their annual meeting on Thursday until they have tested the success of transformation efforts.

That keeps Moroe ally Jack Madiseng in position, for now, as the CGL president, a post he will need to keep if he is to succeed Chris Nenzani — another Moroe man — as CSA president.

The CGL said on Sunday that Jono Leaf-Wright would replace Greg Fredericks, who has been the CGL’s chief executive since October 2013.

Leaf-Wright, 37, has a background in coaching.

First published by TMG Digital.

Rabada run ragged, but a long way from Holding’s heap of hard work

“I can say with absolute honesty that I used to run in wanting to take the batsman’s head off when I was trying to bowl a bouncer.” – Mitchell Johnson

TELFORD VICE in London

KAGISO Rabada is 54 days younger than Jofra Archer but he has bowled 6 566 more deliveries in Test cricket.

That was before Thursday’s third Ashes Test at Headingley, where the Bajan-born and raised England fast bowler might well add to his reputation for putting the fear of the gods into all who face him.

But, as Michael Holding warned this week, Rabada’s string of back injuries should serve as a warning of the dangers of pace bowlers piling up too many overs.

“It’s abuse,” the former West Indian quick declared.

Ten Test bowlers have sent down more overs than Rabada’s 1 138.2 since he made his debut against India in Mohali in November 2015.

Seven of them are spinners and the others — Stuart Broad, Josh Hazlewood and James Anderson — are between four and 13 years older than him.

Holding was 21 when he played his first Test, against Australia at the Gabba in November and December 1975 — a year older than Rabada was when he cracked the nod.

Rabada has bowled 6 830 deliveries in his 37 Tests. How many did Holding unleash in his first 37 Tests? A fair few more: 7 978.

But the took Holding almost seven years. Rabada has reached the same point in not quite four years.

And that’s only in Test cricket. Holding had bowled 10 023 balls for West Indies’ test and one-day teams by the time he had played 37 matches in the longest format.

Rabada has run in 11 094 times for South Africa in Test, one-day and T20 matches.

The cumulative effect of all that was alarmingly apparent at this year’s World Cup, where Rabada was sixth in South Africa’s bowling averages with 11 wickets at 36.09.

He looked a flat, pale imitation of the superb athlete who tore through batting line-ups earlier in his career.

And let’s not get too excited about the Indian Premier League, where Rabada has bowled only 410 balls in two campaigns.

He got through more than half as many — 213 — for the Jozi Stars in last year’s Mzansi Super League alone.

But it is clear Rabada has mislaid the fire that once burned so brightly in his bowling, and which was crisply articulated by a former keeper of the flame, Mitchell Johnson, in his column in the Independent this week.

“Bowling with pace and hostility doesn’t happen without the intent to do so,” Johnson wrote.

“You need the desire to do it in order to go through all the pain that comes with bowling at extreme speeds.

“I can say with absolute honesty that I used to run in wanting to take the batsman’s head off when I was trying to bowl a bouncer.

“That’s not me saying that I ever wanted to hurt anyone. It was simply a way to trick my mind and get up for the battle.”

Johnson wrote in the wake of Archer putting Steve Smith out of the Headingley match with a blow to the neck during the second Test at Lord’s that concussed the Australia kingpin, who scored centuries in both innings of the series opener at Edgbaston.

The sight of Smith poleaxed on the pitch would have reminded many of Phil Hughes being killed in similar circumstances in Sydney in November 2014, but it took Johnson back to the Centurion Test of February the same year.

“The one incident similar to Archer’s ball to Smith that I can recall from my playing days is when I hit South Africa’s Ryan McLaren in a Test,” Johnson wrote.

“I bowled the ball aiming for his head, but when it struck and I knew I’d hurt him I got no pleasure from it at all.

“I went to every length to make sure that Ryan knew that I was asking after him and hoped he was OK.”

McLaren rose and batted on in that second innings, but only for another five balls before being caught behind off Johnson — who also dismissed him in the first innings and finished with a career-best match haul of 12/157.

Rabada has taken 10 wickets in a Test four times. How many more such successes he will celebrates is difficult to know.

But he will know that, injury permitting, he has a long way to go before he’s done.

So far, Rabada has bowled 19 140 deliveries in all cricket since his junior days.

Holding, who played his last competitive match for a Malcolm Marshall XI against an International XI at the Honourable Artillery Company Ground in Finsbury in July 2000 — seven years after his 37th Test — sent down 61 396 balls in total. He was 46.

Hang in there, KG, you’re just more than half that age and not even a third of the way towards matching Holding’s heap of hard work.

First published by TMG Digital.

Jofra Archer stealing Simon Harmer’s thunder in England

“Archer bowled a third of all the overs bowled. That’s a spinner’s quota.” – Michael Holding bemoans fast bowlers’ workloads.

TELFORD VICE in London

JOFRA Archer is the flavour of the moment in English men’s cricket but he has a way to go to match the leading bowler in the country.

Off-spinner Simon Harmer, the South African who captains first-division Essex, has claimed 65 wickets — which includes seven five-wicket hauls and two of 10 wickets — at an average of 18.18 and an economy rate of 2.57 in 11 county championship matches.

And there are more South African players lighting up county cricket where Harmer came from.

Dane Vilas cracked this highest score in England this season, a career-best 266 off 240 balls, for Lancashire in their second-division game against Glamorgan in Colwyn Bay on Monday.

Vilas hit 35 fours and six sixes in an innings that started when Lancashire were 137/4. They were 539/9 on their way to a total of 545 — which helped them win by an innings and 150 runs — when he was bowled by medium pacer David Lloyd.

Dwaine Pretorius put in a reasonable T20 performance for Northamptonshire, scoring 139 runs in six innings and taking five wickets — although at the expensive economy rate of 8.28.

But he raised his game significantly in his first championship match for the second-division side this week, scoring 111 against a Worcestershire attack that included Wayne Parnell and Moeen Ali and doing his bit in Northants’ 10-wicket win.

None of which has caught much of the spotlight, which is being hogged by Archer, who claimed match figures of 5/91 on debut for England in the second Test against Australia at Lord’s, which ended on Sunday.

But that’s not why the Bajan-born and raised fast bowler is hitting the headlines hard.

Rather, it’s because he’s making a habit of hitting batters even harder with his express deliveries.

Archer put the skids under South Africa’s World Cup campaign by smacking Hashim Amla on the grille of his helmet, via the edge of Amla’s bat, in the opening match of the tournament at the Oval.

Amla returned after retiring hurt but missed South Africa’s next two matches.

On Saturday at Lord’s, Archer felled Steve Smith with a blow to the neck that concussed the Australian and has ruled him out for the third Test at Headingley, which starts on Thursday.

Archer also hit Marnus Labuschagne, who became cricket’s first ever concussion replacement when he stood in for Smith in the second innings, but did not injure him.

But former West Indies fast bowler Michael Holding has offered batters hope with his view that Archer won’t be around for long if England don’t ease his workload.

“Archer bowled a third of all the overs bowled,” Holding was quoted as saying in an interview with the Independent. “That’s a spinner’s quota.”

Archer sent down 44 of the 142 overs England bowled in the match: significantly less than the 27.3 assigned to Jack Leach, the home side’s first-choice slow bowler.

Part-time spinner Joe Root and Joe Denly had three overs between them, which means Archer bowled 23.3 more overs than the three spinners combined. 

“If you keep bowling him like this you will lose the 96 miles-per-hour [154.5 kilometres-an-hour],” Holding was quoted as saying.

“He’ll still bowl fast, 90 mph [144.8 kmh], but do you want to lose the express pace? It is not just about this match or the next, but next year and the one after that.”

Holding held up Kagiso Rabada, who has been hampered by back injuries and was flat and ineffective at the World cup, as a cautionary tale against over-bowling. 

“It’s abuse,” Holding said. “When I was bowling, we had three other quicks just as fast. We could share the burden.

“England need to be very careful with Archer. He is obviously very fit, as you could see with his recovery from the side strain.

“Like me, he is tall, not big and muscular. He relies on rhythm and looks very relaxed running in.

“All that is in his favour but it is not sustainable for England to use him like this in every match.”

First published by TMG Digital.