“The best minds in the game in South Africa.” – Faf du Plessis on Graeme Smith, Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis.
TELFORD VICE | Cape Town
CLEARLY, Ravichandran Ashwin thought the premise of his question was rock solid. Faf du Plessis, just as clearly, thought his answer was a no-brainer. Many among the cricketminded would have concurred with them. But not in South Africa, where what Du Plessis said could hit the headlines in ways neither he nor Ashwin doubtless would have intended.
The India off-spinner interviewed Du Plessis for his YouTube show, DRS with Ashwin. After a discussion about the impact the slew of retirements and Kolpak defections South Africa have suffered in recent years have had on their depth of talent, Ashwin said, “Mark Boucher has come back, and he was one of those guys who was very instrumental in South Africa’s earlier resurgence. And now he is there, meaning business all over again. How difficult is it going to be for the likes of Mark and, let’s say, Jacques to try and retain players to give South African cricket a boost so they can overcome this?”
Du Plessis nodded as Ashwin spoke, then replied: “Experience for players takes time, it takes a lot of games, it takes years to get there. But in a coaching staff you can get that overnight. You can get the experience into your dressingroom with someone like Boucher and Kallis, and even Smith as director of cricket.
“I think it’s the best thing that we could do right now to fast-track the experience process. But even with that it’s still a tough job. There’s still a lot of work to be done. But they are at least giving the players the best chance to perform, and that’s all you can ask for. The best minds in the game in South Africa — to tap into that and see how they can grow themselves as players as quickly as I had the opportunity of doing in that great team. Now you’re trying to replicate that in the dressingroom with the coaching staff.”
So far, so sensible. But, in the context of the debate that has raged in South Africa over the past two months, those are inflammatory views.
Between them, Graeme Smith, Mark Boucher and Jacques Kallis — respectively CSA’s director of cricket, South Africa’s head coach, and their batting consultant last season — boast 430 Test caps, 828 ODI appearances and 83 T20Is. They are among the greatest players South Africa have produced and they were key to their team reaching the No. 1 Test ranking in August 2012, weeks after Boucher’s career was ended by injury.
But Smith, Boucher and Kallis are all white. That makes them unpopular among large sections of South Africa’s populace, who have grown angry and frustrated, justifiably, at black and brown figures being denied opportunities. Consequently much of the national cricket discourse has fixated on race, with pointed segues into the legitimacy of Boucher’s appointment — rushed because of the imminence of England’s tour last summer, and for four years rather than the more usual two — and how much white part-time consultants are paid relative to black and brown fulltime coaches. CSA have said they will not hire white consultants if they can help it.
For Du Plessis — who is also white and as such was also born into the privilege that helped him make the most of his potential — to refer to Smith, Boucher and Kallis as “the best minds in the game in South Africa” will not go down well with the antagonists. Among them is the minister of sport, Nathi Mthethwa, who has complained about the unbearable whiteness of the upper echelons of the game.
That conversation is on a different planet from the hand-wringing about how South Africa are going to steady themselves with so many quality players having walked away. Smith, Boucher and Kallis retired between July 2012 and March 2014. Kyle Abbott, Rilee Rossouw and Duanne Olivier went Kolpak between January 2017 and February 2019. AB de Villiers and Morné Morkel played their last matches for South Africa in April 2018, and Hashim Amla in June 2019. Of the XI who raised the ICC Test mace in triumph at Lord’s on August 20, 2012, none are still playing in the format.
“You had the perfect storm,” Du Plessis said. “We lost all of our experience over a period of a year or a year-and-a-half. And then you had a lot of new guys coming through, who would be our best players once guys like AB and Hashim and Morné retired — guys like Kyle Abbott — leave to go and play Kolpak cricket. Duane Olivier did really well, and then he signs Kolpak. Rilee Rossouw was going to be our next AB de Villiers.
“Because we lost a lot of good players, and we had a group of good players retiring, the group of players to pick from was smaller. It’s not to say the guys weren’t good enough; we’ve still got a lot of great talent in South Africa. But if you have fewer players to pick from it means you won’t get the best of the best of the best. In India, you have a billion people competing for 11 spots. Those cricketers aren’t going anywhere. They all want to play for India. That’s their dream. That’s a flaw in the system of South African cricket. We’re desperately trying to see how we can improve it.”
Du Plessis took De Villiers’ departure particularly hard, and not only because the team he captained was losing a star player: “When AB left, it was really tough for me. I depended a lot on him, as a friend, and obviously as the best player in the team; we needed his skills. When he said he was done … as a friend my first instinct was ‘I’m here for you, and I’ll support you. If you feel like you’re at the end of your career and you don’t want to do it anymore, then that’s ok — I support that decision 100%’. As a captain, I was like, ‘How do we move forward without AB? How do we get the same performances?’
“But the friend in me trumped the captain in me. And I just said, ‘We’re going to miss you. Are you sure?’ He was like, ‘Yeah, I am 100% sure, I don’t want to play international cricket anymore. I don’t have the drive to do it anymore. So I am stopping.’ I respected that immediately and left it there. I never after that tried to convince him again, because I respected what he said. Even at times when we desperately needed him.”
Now Du Plessis himself is in the departure lounge, which he signalled by relinquishing the captaincy in February. “That was the hardest thing I had to do, purely because I believed that being a leader is something that was part of my destiny; it was my purpose,” he said. “And I’ve always enjoyed captaining more than I have enjoyed playing. I think I am a good player, but I think I really come to the party when it comes to captaining. That’s where I really love playing cricket. That’s what puts a smile on my face.
“And the last year of international cricket was tough, because I carried a lot of what was going through the team’s performances on my own shoulders, and I didn’t want to show that to anyone. Because in my own head, I’m the captain. I need to make sure I stay strong for the team, I don’t show weakness towards the team. So that was tough, because I didn’t have a lot of guys to speak to about it, a lot of experienced guys around me.”
Millions of Indians will always celebrate Ashwin for his skill and presence as a bowler and the ability he gained with the bat as he grew into his career. Clearly, Ashwin recognises Du Plessis as a cricketer in his league — a fine player and a great leader who deserves to be remembered with respect and admiration. But, to too many South Africans, Du Plessis is just another white man whose time is up. Ashwin should consider himself fortunate that he will never know what that feels like.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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