That the see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, do-no-evil suits chose to sully the MSL final with their presence shows how out of touch they are.
TELFORD VICE in Paarl
SIGNS that Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) abnormal service at board level would not be interrupted, nevermind resume, were evident before the start of the Mzansi Super League (MSL) final between the Paarl Rocks and the Tshwane Spartans on Monday.
As the teams lined up for the national anthem, a bevvy of bumptiousness barrelled over the boundary to bask in the players’ presence and shake their hands. One of their odd number was Angelo Carolissen, looking fresh from an island holiday in his Panama hat and a shirt that might have borne the brunt of a collision with a hotdog stand’s entire condiment supply. Carolissen, the Boland president, sits on CSA’s board, and his prominence on parade on Monday meant nothing had changed.
The board — or the eight members left in the wake of four resignations in 10 days — had gathered in Paarl for a meeting on Monday. Also present were the members council, which comprises the 14 provincial presidents and has the authority to dissolve the board. That should have happened, given that the board have proved themselves about as functional as a boxer shambling around the ring without the slightest intention of throwing a punch but determined to collect a purse regardless. So much so that the minister of sport, Nathi Mthethwa, summoned them on Thursday and, according to a source, “read them the riot act”. Monday was another opportunity to do the right thing: resign or be removed. Alas, Carolissen’s chest-out, stomach-in peacocking told us that hadn’t happened; that the fat cats were still at the cream. Instead, it was decided that a steering committee be formed to “retroactively” address the domestic restructure proposal that has landed CSA in a court battle with the South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA) because up to 70 professional players could lose their jobs as a result.
SACA blew that idea out of the water in a release on Tuesday that quoted chief executive Tony Irish as saying: “Although CSA has announced that SACA will be part of this committee we have yet to be formally contacted by CSA on this. I confirm however that SACA will not participate in this committee until the existing restructure decision is formally withdrawn. The fact that CSA is now, for the first time, going to look into what the domestic structure should be is a clear admission that the decision eight months ago was taken without this being done. This is precisely why we had to launch legal proceedings against CSA. Given that this is the subject of the court application we cannot participate in a formal committee where decisions taken by it may affect the outcome of the court case. It is therefore obvious to us that the restructure decision must be withdrawn and the court case settled with us first.” Irish said SACA had “no problem in sitting down” to find solutions to cricket’s problems. “However this time around the process needs to be done properly and if the current MOU [memorandum of understanding between CSA and SACA, the document that governs their relationship in law] is to be changed, because of a change in the domestic structure, then agreement must be reached with SACA. This is the only way to bring clarity for the players on what will happen next season and to ensure that we are able to deal with how any changes will affect them.”
The release ended with the by now standard SACA demand for, in Irish’s quoted words, “the leadership of the CSA board to accept accountability for the position in which cricket has been placed. We repeat our call for that leadership to step down.”
That leadership and the rest of the board, and the members council, met at Grande Roche, a luxury winelands hotel where the cheapest room costs USD 340, on Monday. Some of the suits slept there on Sunday, and a few might have squeezed in another expensive night. And that in an organisation that has been forecast to lose up to USD 69.6-million by the end of the 2022 rights cycle. That would not sit well with many, but not South Africans who have become accustomed to the dismal behaviour of CSA’s see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, do-no-evil board.
That they chose to sully Paarl with their presence was evidence of how out of touch they are. The MSL is among the few aspects of the game in South Africa that could be considered in working order. It is losing money hand over fist — USD 7.7-million last year — and it couldn’t be worse timed to try and help a faltering men’s Test squad prepare for a series against England that starts on December 26. But, after playing to empty houses for the first few weeks, crowds picked up. The quality of the cricket has been decent throughout, with games keenly contested more often than not. Had CSA’s board a smidgen of awareness between them they would have met in secret at the other end of the country and not put themselves on view to remind the sold out crowd of 7 500, the biggest of the tournament crammed into its smallest ground, at the final that, however good things looked on the field, the same old rot stank beyond the boundary.
Three hours after Carolissen’s appearance, with the Rocks 16 runs away from winning the final and the country watching on free-to-air television — and waiting to celebrate with a team who are impossible not to like and blessed with almost equally entertaining supporters — a release fluttered into view. It was from CSA and, predictably, it dragged the attention of the cricketminded public off the game.
“The board of directors of [CSA] has given its consultant, David Richardson, the mandate to form a steering committee to make recommendations on the future structure of South African domestic cricket. The steering committee will examine all practical options on the future of the domestic game including the best manner in which to close the gap in playing standard between domestic and international cricket and its financial implications. The committee is expected to report back to the board at its next meeting in the first quarter of 2020. The committee, in addition to Mr. Richardson, will consist of the CSA Director of Cricket [Graeme Smith], the CSA chief financial officer [Pholetsi Moseki] and a representative of [SACA].”
Happily, Richardson was on hand to turn CSA’s bloodless organisation-speak into something more human.
What would he say to those who consider his appointment part of CSA’s whitewashing exercise? “It is a genuine commitment to try and help out, simple as that. I think there is an acknowledgment from the board that somehow CSA had got itself into a bit of a hole and they looked around for people who could maybe help, so its a genuine attempt to help.
How deep is the hole CSA have dug for the game and its future? “It’s not good on a number of fronts. Things have been allowed to fester. Jacques [Faul, CSA’s acting chief executive] has got his hands full looking at the operations, there’s governance that probably won’t go away and then we’ve got the urgency of having to deal with the England team arriving [for a Test series starting on December 26] and having to put on a good performance. There’s a lot to be done.”
As a recent International Cricket Council chief executive, Richardson is well equipped to look at relevant issues through an objective lens. “The value of international rights is not what it was two years ago, so first of all we’ve got to make sure the forecasting and assumptions that are made when it comes to devising any kind of structure are robust enough,” he said. “That’s an exercise in itself. People throw around this R650-million [USD 45-million] forecast loss. Is it 650? Is it 300-million, is it 1-billion [SACA’s estimate]? We’ve got to establish that upfront and understand the challenges facing us. Then we need to make sure the stakeholders are all consulted and that we look at it from not only a cricket perspective, quality-wise, but also a financial and sustainable perspective. That is going to take a bit of work but a lot of work has been done, as I understand it, so its all about checking the robustness of the figures and then putting some cricket parameters in place and then trying to devise an option that the board will approve going forward.”
Ah, the board; the villains of the piece. “I always like to give the benefit of the doubt as far as integrity is concerned,” Richardson said. “From the management side, we need to put some decent proposals on the table. I think we have got the perfect guy in Jacques who understands the whole infrastructure here. He knows the sponsors, he knows a lot of the players. So he is ideally placed to put something in place that works and you can’t fault his work ethic and his integrity. Yes, we can’t guarantee the board will eventually approve any recommendations that come out of this process but if we put a good plan together, there’s no reason why they wouldn’t.”
Maybe Richardson hasn’t yet understood exactly who and what he is dealing with. CSA’s release on Monday quoted president Chris Nenzani as saying: “Domestic cricket is an important part of our talent development pipeline in ensuring that top quality players come through the system to maintain the … Proteas as a major force in the world game.”
South Africa were the first team to crash out of the reckoning for a place in the knockout rounds at this year’s World Cup and they currently sit at the bottom of the World Test Championship standings. Maybe someone should tell Nenzani. Try the Grande Roche Hotel first.
Not that South Africans aren’t used to this level of studied disinterest from their administrators. Minutes after he was first elected, in February 2013 at a meeting at the Wanderers with a Test against New Zealand in full flow on the field, Nenzani asked that questions from the press be brief. “We all have families to go home to,” he said. The cricket? It didn’t seem to matter much. Six years on, not a lot would appear to have changed. At least, not for the good.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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