ICC World Test Championship – Bulletproof Truth

SA20 golden elephant dominates South Africa’s dressingroom

“This is what is facing world cricket currently and over the next few years.” – Pholetsi Moseki, CSA chief executive, on the scheduling shemozzle.

Telford Vice / Cape Town

LOST in the kerfuffle over the scheduling shemozzle for South Africa’s men’s WTC series in New Zealand in February is the incontrovertible fact that not a lot could or can be done, that the two matches were on the FTP that appeared almost five months before the SA20 arrived, and that South Africa shouldn’t make their problems New Zealand’s.

India’s tour to South Africa is scheduled to end on January 7. It will be followed directly by the SA20, which ran from January 10 to February 12 this year. That means players involved in the SA20 won’t be able to make it to New Zealand in time for the Tests in Mount Maunganui and Hamilton from February 4 to 17.

How many players? Of the XI in South Africa’s most recent Test, against West Indies at the Wanderers in march, only Dean Elgar and Tony de Zorzi did not play in this year’s SA20.

Wouldn’t the players want to be part of the Tests rather than just another T20 tournament? They don’t have a choice. As per South Africa’s players’ individually signed agreements with CSA, the SA20 has been put at the top of their priorities: they are bound to consider the SA20 sacrosanct.

“Because of our contractual obligations to the SA20, and because I’ve bet and CSA have bet everything on the SA20, we have to guarantee players for the SA20,” Pholetsi Moseki, CSA’s chief executive, told Cricbuzz on Friday. “So, yes, that is correct. We’ve bet a lot on the SA20 being a success, and a lot of that was making sure we guarantee the players for the tournament.”

The SA20 is the elephant in the room — the golden elephant. It gets in the way of the international game, but without it professional cricket would be out of business in South Africa in a few short years. The view that playing for South Africa matters more than anything else is utter and nostalgic nonsense.

So, auction dependent, do not expect the Test squad in New Zealand to include names like Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma, Rassie van der Dussen, Ryan Rickelton, Heinrich Klaasen, Marco Jansen, Keshav Maharaj, Anrich Nortjé, Kagiso Rabada or Lungi Ngidi.

Are New Zealand that busy? They will host Bangladesh and Pakistan in white-ball games from December 20 to January 21, then play South Africa, then receive Australia for three T20Is and two Tests from February 21 to March 8. There are a scant four days between the end of South Africa’s tour and the start of Australia’s. And New Zealand — like South Africa — do not have the player resources to staff separate Test and white-ball squads.

What to do? Playing the two Tests in New Zealand in April, as CSA have suggested to NZC, wouldn’t work. The IPL, the most significant annual event on the world cricket scene, will take over the global game from around the last week of March to late May.

“Both of us lose quite a lot of players during the IPL, so I was hoping that at least they would see that as making it more evenly balanced,” Moseki said. “They were reluctant to do that. I wasn’t necessarily in favour of it, but I thought it could have been a way of rescuing the situation. I couldn’t see any other time unless we could pull a miracle like playing in a neutral country, which I don’t see as a possibility because they want to host the games.”

Another mooted solution, to play the matches in South Africa in August, is similarly and understandably unpalatable to the Kiwis. The issue is not of their making, so they should not be expected to give up their home advantage.

How could these sorry circumstances have been avoided? “That’s what we’ve been cracking our heads about in the last 72 hours, to see if we’ve missed something,” Moseki said. “We tried everything to sort it out, and the reality is the leagues — ours included — are shrinking the international calendar. When you include the leagues it’s even smaller. Then you’ve got annual ICC events. We’re all trying to squeeze everything into that small space.

“I don’t think there is anything that could have been done differently. This is unfortunately what is facing world cricket currently and over the next few years. But the last 72 hours, the hate that I’ve got! So I went back to the guys and looked at it again. I don’t know what else we could have done except to say we’re not going to honour the fixture, and that’s never something you want to do.”

South Africa did exactly that for three ODIs in Australia in January — because they needed their players for the SA20. The forfeiture of those WCSL points helped take South Africa uncomfortably close to having to qualify for this year’s World Cup.

“Some people seemed to think it was an easy decision because of what they saw as our obsession with the SA20, but it wasn’t,” Moseki said. “I would be really reluctant to do that this time. I would try to see how we could rescue the situation before we forfeit. That would be the nuclear option, but it’s not something I would be in favour of. It would be because we didn’t have a choice.

“I’m not totally unhappy with the New Zealanders. I understand that they tried to accommodate us. I still feel there might be something we could do, and that’s why I’ve been reluctant to blame them. I am still talking to them. I was really unhappy with the Aussies because I felt there were options. They just didn’t want to accept any of them. I understand both us and New Zealand are in a very tight position.”

All of which is playing out in South Africa against a feral background of public anger and abuse fuelled by CSA’s astonishing success rate at shooting itself in both feet and several other places in the not yet distant past, and basic racism that black people should dare to think they are capable of running anything properly. It can seem as if the only thing cricketminded South Africans love more than the game is venting their spleens over the performance of largely black-run CSA.

“Because of our history and the damage caused, they always think the worst of us,” Moseki said. “And then came the challenges of the last 72 hours; of the last few weeks, in fact. I’ve aged five to 10 years this week.”

Stand by. Another 72 hours, and counting, are on the way.

Cricbuzz

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England have answers, South Africa only questions

“Who do we have with experience in first-class cricket back home? And is that the right solution? We don’t know yet.” – Dean Elgar

Telford Vice / The Oval

THE last time England beat South Africa at home as resoundingly as they did at the Oval on Monday, the headlines were also flooded with news of the real world. Now, they abound with details of Charles III succeeding Elizabeth II. Then, they were about the sinking of the Titanic four months previously.

Yes, it was that long ago: August 1912, when England won by 10 wickets in two days. It was also at the Oval and the match lasted for 815 deliveries, or 94 balls fewer than the game in which England raced to a nine-wicket win in two days and 25 minutes on Monday.

Only three Tests played in England have been decided in fewer deliveries than the third Test. Eighth on the list was the first Test at Lord’s, where South Africa won by an innings and 12 runs. The second Test at Old Trafford comes in at No. 56 — maybe because South Africa got it wrong by prematurely committing to picking two spinners, and leaving themselves no choice but to bat first. That allowed England to have the best of the batting conditions in their first innings of 415/9 declared, which lasted for 106.4 overs — easily the biggest of the series in terms of runs as well as overs. It was the only match in the rubber in which the team who won the toss didn’t field first, and the only one lost by the team who won the toss.

Stuart Broad remarked on Sunday that the pitches for England’s first four home Tests of the summer, against India and New Zealand, had been flatter than in this series. What did that say about the surfaces for the South Africa matches?

“It seems like every game was decided at the toss,” Kagiso Rabada told Mark Butcher in his television interview after it was announced that Brendon McCullum had chosen him as South Africa’s player of the series. Dean Elgar, speaking specifically about the Oval Test, in which England called correctly and fielded first, backed up Rabada’s view: “The toss was big. We were sure we would have bowled as well.” Ben Stokes balanced that debate: “The toss has been important and you wanted to win it, but you’ve still got to execute your gameplan.”

England did that at Old Trafford, where they won by an innings and 85 runs in three days, and again at the Oval. South Africa did at Lord’s, where they won by an innings and 12 runs inside three days, but not at Old Trafford or at the Oval — where the visitors’ totals of 151 and 118 are their lowest in completed first innings in England since … that’s right, 1912.

It didn’t help South Africa that Elgar was their only specialist batter who had played Tests in England before, and the only one who had scored 5,000 runs in the format. “We suffered from a lack of experience in Test cricket and a lack of exposure to UK conditions with the ball swinging and nipping,” Elgar told a press conference on Monday. “We were exposed to the toughest batting conditions throughout this Test, especially with the ball nipping quite a lot. It was up there with really tough conditions, even for myself and I’ve got a relatively decent amount of experience. I can only imagine how a guy with one or two Tests under his belt must have felt. It was tough all round. The lack of experience and exposure to those kinds of situations work hand in hand.”

England took 659 caps into the Oval Test. South Africa? Just 234, not much more than a third of their opponents’ experience. England’s most seasoned player, James Anderson, has played 175 Tests — more than twice as many as the 79 that make Elgar South Africa’s longest-serving player.

And don’t take Elgar’s word for it that batting on was more challenging than usual, even in England. This summer marked only the second time in the history of Test cricket in the country, when at least three Tests have been played here, that no opener has scored a century. The other instance was longer ago than even 1912: try 1888 for size. But, despite the relative lack of production by batters better equipped than any others to come to terms with conditions, England found a way to win six of the seven Tests they played.

“It’s quite hard not to be pleased when you finish off a summer of seven Tests and come out on the right side of six of them,” Stokes told a press conference. “A lot of credit has got to go to everyone involved in English cricket this summer, from the players to the management to the backroom staff. It’s not just about the 11 guys out on the field who have to believe and buy into a new way of playing, it’s about everybody around you — the language that gets spoken in the dressing room by everybody, the coaches, the way in which they work with all the players as well. This has been a huge collective responsibility put on everyone this summer and everyone’s dived into it and taken to it like a duck to water.”

England’s philosophy has been given a name by the press — ‘Bazball’, in recognition of its architect, Brendon McCullum. Importantly for the concept’s wider acceptance, Stokes was the earliest adopter. But what was it, exactly? Attack at all times? Attack first and don’t ask why later? Both questions unsettled a culture as conservative as English cricket. The best answer is that England have lost only one of seven matches playing that way. Another part of the answer is another question: would England have been as successful, given the quality of their opponents and the conditions, had they stuck to more conventional methods?

“The mindset that those two guys [McCullum and Stokes] have brought to our changing room and to Test cricket as a whole has been so refreshing and invigorating as a player,” Broad said on Sunday. “That approach of no consequences and trying to play cricket on the front foot the whole of the time suits my mindset and how I like to play my cricket. Being in a changing room full of players who want to move the game forward at speed … At no stage is there ever any talk about drawing or surviving. It’s all about taking the positive option at all times.

“It’s been incredible how those two have worked together and the messaging they’ve always brought through has been so united. You feel really backed if you play in the style of cricket those two have created in the changing room. As a fan, it’s been really exciting. We’ve had times when we’ve been 50/6, 50/7 and got ourselves out of trouble with the mindset that we have to move the game in a direction that suits us.”

The South Africans will limp home feeling as if they have done significantly worse than won six of the 10 completed internationals — including two T20Is against Ireland — they played on a tour that started in the second week of July. Having drawn and won the white-ball series against England, their batting, in particular, was found wanting in a Test series in which they were bowled out for fewer than 200 in four of their five innings. That happened to England three times, but they weren’t dismissed in the other two innings and so were able to dictate matters. How would South Africa fix their batting problems, especially considering the quality chasm that looms between Test cricket and their domestic game? And that, with minimal help from their first-class competition, they will have to find answers before they play three Tests in Australia in December and January.

“I always bank on experience, and I know we don’t have that at Test level,” Elgar said. “My next best thing is who do we have with experience in first-class cricket back home? And is that the right solution? We don’t know yet. We’ve still got a few months before our next series and we’ve only got a handful of four-day games at home before we leave for Australia.

“It’s a tough thing now because the guys have to learn the toughest format without a lot of experienced heads around them. Those are the cards we’ve been dealt and we’ve got to find a way to ease the blow for us. Coming to England you are always going to be exposed to tough conditions if the weather is on the bowlers’ side and if the wicket is sporty. I am looking for experienced heads, from a first-class point of view, guys who have scored a lot of runs back home.”

The series result has left South Africa in second place on the World Test Championship standings, and thus still in position to reach the final at Lord’s in June. But another setback in Australia would put that ambition in danger.

“Every Test match is going to be something you have to live and die for,” Elgar said. “Every game is going to be huge. It’s big for us, because we’ve been playing good cricket and we’ve been playing pretty average cricket as a squad. We need to get that balance right and correct our errors. Come June, if we are in a very good position we can capitalise on that one-off game.”

South Africa have five Tests left to earn a shot at glory. The three against Australia will be followed by two at home against West Indies early next year.

But that comes laced with concern: their series against the Aussies will be their last of more than two Tests until 2026, and the new FTP does not feature any matches in the format against England. No-one had the heart to bring it up, but Elgar has played his last Test in Charles III’s country.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Where have all the Tests gone?

“The ICC are not acting as custodians of the game. There are power brokers there who are more powerful than the ICC.” – Andrew Breetzke, SACA chief executive, on cricket’s coming crisis.

Telford Vice / Lord’s

IF you’ve watched what’s happened at Lord’s these past three days you would be forgiven for thinking Test cricket is in rude health. South Africa played with confidence and conviction beyond expectation, and reaped the rewards by inflicting England’s only innings defeat at home in almost seven years.

The home side’s fans will hope a team went into the match having reeled off four emphatic victories batting second this summer have not been derailed merely by having to take guard first against a quality pace attack.

Three days into the series, the narrative is already rich with plot and subplot. Onto Old Trafford and the Oval for the next gripping chapters, and many more after that. Except, for the South Africans, that will not be the case.

According to the FTP released by the ICC this week, England will play 43 Tests from 2023 to 2027. South Africa? Not quite two-thirds as many: 28. The South Africans will contest 15 series, but only two of them will consist of three Tests. The rest will be two-match affairs. Just three of England’s 15 rubbers will be restricted to two Tests. Of the other dozen, four will be of five matches each.

“I just know we’re playing 28 Tests in five years, which … I guess we could be playing more,” Dean Elgar said at a press conference on Friday after his team’s rousing victory. “It’s a sad thing but so be it. I can’t say too much about that because I might get into trouble.” During a later question that was laced with the premise that South Africa should play more Tests, he interjected with, “A lot more.”

Elgar’s team arrived in England on top of the World Test Championship standings, and have now extended their lead and increased their chances of being invited back to Lord’s in June next year to play in the final. They are in danger of being the best in a business they are being systematically shut out of — partly at the behest of their own board, who are in creasing need of funds to keep the cricket industry afloat.

CSA need to clear their January calendars to accommodate their new T20 franchise tournament, which is due to start next year. But January is also prime time for international cricket in the country. Something will have to give, and its the national team’s fixture list. Already CSA have withdrawn them from an ODI series in Australia, forfeiting World Cup Super League points in the process and risking their direct qualification for the 2023 World Cup.

On commentary during lunch on Sunday, Graeme Smith — the new league’s commissioner — defended the venture and the decision to pull out of the Australian tour: “For four weeks of an entire year the priority will be the league. If we hadn’t done this South African cricket could have probably lost eight to 10 players to the UAE league [which is set to run simultaneously]. So there has to be an element of investment into our game to keep our players.”

Years of maladministration, a dwindling wider economy and the effects of the pandemic on global markets had created a perfect storm that had driven cricket in South Africa to the edge of a financial abyss. If another revenue source isn’t secured, the game could be hit by irreparable damage.

“The pressure on nations like New Zealand, West Indies and South Africa to stay financially sustainable to keep up with England, India and the world game is hugely important,” Smith said. “World cricket can’t afford South Africa or any one of the top nations to start fading away [in terms of] the standard of the game and the investment into the game.”

Andrew Breetzke, the chief executive of the South African Cricketers’ Association (SACA), shared Smith’s concerns and called on the ICC to address what he saw as a looming calamity. “With fewer Tests being played and more two-match series Test cricket is being diluted,” Breetzke told reporters during an impromptu lunchtime visit to the Lord’s pressbox.

“FICA [the Federation of International Cricketers’ Associations] and SACA have been saying for the last five years that the ICC should be taking ownership of this by looking out for how we balance bilateral and international cricket with domestic T20 events. If they don’t do that we’re going to see Test cricket diminished among the non-Big Three [comprised of India, England and Australia]. We’re exactly there, and that’s disappointing.”

Why were the ICC not tackling the issue? “It’s not in their interests. The ICC are not acting as the custodians of the game. There are power brokers there who are more powerful than the ICC. That’s our reality.”

The ICC’s central weakness is that they are a member-led organisation. If some of those members are exponentially more wealthy than the rest they become bigger than the game itself — which could suffer in numerous ways. For instance, the BCCI is good for cricket in that it makes the largest single chunk of its money. But that’s also bad for the game because it means all the other countries have to dance to the juggernaut’s tune, sometimes at their own expense.

For instance, in March, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen, Anrich Nortjé, Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram chose to play in the IPL rather than in a Test series against Bangladesh. “Our guys not playing Test matches to go to the IPL is a reality check of the pressure South African cricket is under,” Breetzke said.

“If you’re not playing India enough your broadcast revenue is down,” Breetzke said. “Sponsor revenue is down because the team are not playing enough but also because of the last five years at CSA [administratively]. No-one wants to get involved in our cricket. That’s the sad reality. So there’s a lot of work to be done by CSA — which, to give them credit, they’re doing — to enhance CSA’s reputation so that they can attract sponsors. That’s more critical than ever.”

What were the chances of those efforts succeeding? “The market has changed post-Covid,” Breetzke said. “You’re not getting big sponsorships anywhere. [South African] rugby have the same challenge and rugby are highly successful [having won three World Cups]. So now we’re seeing more shorter, smaller, specific sponsorship deals. That’s where CSA have got to up their game and be a lot more on the ball.

“If you want to get somewhere to where there’s a positive approach to what the game should be, then big countries like Australia and England have to say the status quo isn’t in the interests of the game. But it’s not as if Australia and England don’t have challenges, especially Australia. As long as everyone else is under pressure, you just chase the money. What’s in the best interests of the game is definitely not only what’s in the best interests of India.”

So, through gritted teeth, Breetzke voiced SACA’s support for CSA’s T20 league: “It’s critical for the survival of CSA. We’ve got three sources of revenue in CSA — broadcast revenue, sponsorship, and ICC revenue. Two of those are reducing. We need to find a fourth source of revenue, and that is a T20 tournament.”

But South Africa’s presence as a Test team will shrink as a consequence. So there was meaning beyond Elgar’s words when he said: “You need to play every Test like it’s your last game.”

Because, he didn’t say, it might be your last game.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Why Boucher’s return to Taunton matters

“We’ll get a couple of the guys to talk about the pressures of what it’s like to play in England.” – Mark Boucher on a topic familiar to him.

Telford Vice | Palermo, Sicily

A previous South African team’s mission was accomplished 40 days short of 10 years ago, when Vernon Philander’s signature delivery — the seam smiling slyly as the ball veered away a smidgen at a pace that ambushed the drive as surely as a well-tied and wielded fly would fool a fish — took the edge of Steven Finn’s bat.

The ball curved gently through the electrified air towards second slip, where it plopped into Jacques Kallis’ hands. Job done. World domination had been achieved an hour after tea on the fifth day at Lord’s. Civilians know it as August 20, 2012.

The South Africans, captained by Graeme Smith and coached by Gary Kirsten, had arrived in England knowing they needed to win the series to annex the No. 1 ranking and claim the Test mace from the home side. The 2022 version of the team, captained by Dean Elgar and coached by Mark Boucher, rose to the No. 1 spot by dint of Sri Lanka’s innings victory over Australia in Galle, which was completed on Monday.

Some things change: the prize now is neither a ranking nor a mace but a place in the World Test Championship final, which will be contested by the top two teams in the standings as of March 31, 2023. Other things do not change: the 2012 visit started in Taunton, as the 2022 venture did on Tuesday with a white-ball tour match.

It is impossible to put Boucher’s name and Taunton on the same page without being struck afresh by the cold, hard truth of what had happened to him on the same ground on July 9, 2012 — 43 days before the mace changed hands. Time raced in the frozen moments before and after Imran Tahir cleanbowled Gemaal Hussain midway through the first day. One instant, Boucher was crouched behind the stumps. The next, his career was over. He was on his knees and elbows, gloves covering face, squirming in agony. For the first and only time in his life as a public figure, he looked vulnerable. A player who would expressly, in his own words, “walk onto the field as if you own the place” was about to be escorted off, never to return. The ball had launched the right-hander’s leg-side bail into Boucher’s unprotected face, its violence felling him. The white of his left eye was lacerated, permanently robbing him of half his sight.

Boucher was 37. He had played 147 Tests, 295 ODIs and 25 T20Is. In what became his last 20 completed Test innings, he passed 50 three times — including a 118-ball 95 that was instrumental in South Africa’s innings victory over England at the Wanderers in January 2010. There was grumbling that, at that stage, he had suffered 34 dismissals without scoring a century. But in those 34 innings he had batted higher than No. 7 only twice, when he took guard at No. 6.

Even so, the 2012 England series was to have been the last hurrah for a player who was a major figure in shaping South Africa’s way of cricket in that era: always uncompromising, often brutal, sometimes destructive. The alarming dangers in how that flawed philosophy was implemented were exposed at the Social Justice and Nation Building (SJN) hearings last year. It emerged that the ugliness was also aimed at South Africa’s own players, who were abused by their teammates in a range of ways. Some of that behaviour was racist. Boucher was both a perpetrator and, albeit less seriously because he was and is a white man in a white supremacist, toxically male society, a victim in that culture.

Partly because he has cultivated an image of unassailability, partly because it suits some of his attackers to cast him as the embodiment of much that ills not only South African cricket but also the wider problems in a country still stricken by the realities of racism, Boucher’s humanity isn’t often considered or even recognised. For some, he has become less a person and more a symbol. And therefore held up either as a bastion against imagined wokeness and, simultaneously, as a standard-bearer for South Africa’s underground but virulent and real racism.

He is neither. But maybe that’s why the relevant fact that he was back at the scene of his dramatic demise as a player for the first time since 2012 never came up during a 15-minute press conference on Monday.

No doubt Boucher was happy with that. Someone who has banked everything, at the seeming expense of anything, on the projection of square-jawed strength does not want to talk about weakness. But there is no doubt that his experience in 2012, as much as the SJN hearings and their fallout — the disciplinary hearing against him that never got off the ground — would have shaped the person Boucher has become even as the symbol of what he represents, to some, remains untouched.

“A lot of our guys have played a lot of cricket over here recently,” he told Monday’s presser, with reference to members of the current squad’s professional dalliances with English cricket. “So our guys are not foreign to these conditions. We’ll get a couple of them to stand up and talk about the pressures of what it’s like to play in England.”

Boucher himself will have much of value to say. He played in 52 Test series, of which South Africa won 32 and lost only 10. Three of them were in England between 1998 and 2008, when South Africa lost, drew and won. He knows plenty about winning but also about losing, and about losing more than games of cricket. And, also, about personal business that has been unfinished since an hour after lunch in Taunton on July 9, 2012.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Aussie, Aussie, Aussie: “No! No! No!”

If it isn’t sandpaper rubbing South Africans the wrong way about Australians it’s a vicious virus.

Telford Vice | Cape Town

TO the long list of reasons why South Africans detest Australians, add a Test series that will not be played as scheduled. Until Monday, it seemed probable that Australia would agree to honour their commitment to play three matches in the country in March and April. On Tuesday came confirmation that the venture was off. Or, to resort to the weasel word that was used, “postponed”.

With that went around USD2-million in broadcast revenue CSA would have earned, along with the assurance created by Sri Lanka’s Covid-free trip in December and January, and a current women’s series featuring Pakistan, that Cricket South Africa had recovered from England’s virus vexed visit in November and December. Also gone is any hope that cricket in the time of the pandemic might give sportminded South Africans pause for thought about the irrational and unwarranted dislike they reserve for Australians.

The series was called off less than 24 hours after Cyril Ramaphosa, South Africa’s president, told the country that the daily number of new cases of the virus had eased enough to suspend a ban on the sale of alcohol and public access to beaches, and to relax a nationwide nighttime curfew by two hours. South Africa recorded 21,832 new coronavirus infections on January 8. On Monday, thanks to a tightening of lockdown regulations on December 14, only 2,548 additional cases were reported.

But even the fact that the number of infections had crashed by 88.33% in the past 24 days was always going to struggle to cut ice in Australia, where seven tested positive on Monday — exactly 364 times fewer than South Africa’s number of new cases on the same day. On Sunday, when 4,525 contracted Covid in South Africa, Perth went into a five-day lockdown that gave residents just four reasons to leave their homes and led to border restrictions with neighbouring states. And all because a single security guard working at a quarantine hotel in Perth was found to have the disease. Given South Africa’s exponentially bigger problems with containing the virus, there can be little surprise that Australia have chosen not to come.

“Due to the public health situation in South Africa, which includes a second wave and new variant of the virus, and following extensive due diligence with medical experts, it has become clear that traveling from Australia to South Africa at this current time poses an unacceptable level of health and safety risk to our players, support staff and the community,” Nick Hockley, CA’s interim chief executive, was quoted as saying in a release.

That is a fair argument for staying away, and it should be noted that travelling to South Africa would have gone against the Australian government’s advice. And no-one should say the Aussies made their decision flippantly as it complicates their path to earn the right to take on New Zealand in the inaugural World Test Championship final in England in June.

But CSA does have reason to be unhappy about the way the Australians strung it along, making it jump through ever more unreasonable hoops in the hopes of sealing the deal. Justifiably, CSA’s response stopped short of calling the Australians cowardly spoilt brats, but not by much: “CSA wishes to record its immense disappointment at the news. The safety of players is always paramount and over the past few months CSA held many detailed discussions with CA regarding Covid-19 protocols. These discussions included assessing and managing the Covid-19 risks and consulting with a range of leading medical experts including the South African ministerial Covid advisory committee. CSA worked hard to meet the changing demands of our Australian counterparts.”

The CSA release quoted Graeme Smith, the director of cricket, as saying: “This was set to be the longest tour in a bio-secure environment (BSE), comprising a three-match Test series that was scheduled to begin with Australia’s arrival later in the month. So to be informed about the CA decision at the 11th hour is frustrating.”

Shuaib Manjra, CSA’s medical officer, detailed some of the measures that had and would have been taken: “The protocols we had proposed to CA were unprecedented. Firstly we had agreed that our own Proteas team would enter the BSE 14 days prior to the arrival of the Australian team, thus altering their planning during the current tour of Pakistan. Among some of the other key arrangements made were that all four areas (two hotels and two venues) had a protocol to implement a strict BSE with no contact with anybody outside this area. We subsequently agreed to two separate BSEs and had granted Australia full and exclusive use of the Irene Country Lodge [near Centurion], which we shared with Sri Lanka, with a minimum staff present on site. In terms of the arrangements the Proteas were to move to a separate hotel altogether. Furthermore all hotel staff, match officials and even bus drivers were to enter the BSE 14 days prior to Australia’s arrival. In addition CSA had also committed to importing an Australian tracking system at great cost to ensure proper tracking of close contacts in the event of a positive test. The touring team was also going to be granted VIP access through the airports, after government intervention to ensure this privilege.”

Pholetsi Moseki, CSA’s acting chief executive, also laid in: “It is indeed sad that after all the engagements and effort made to ensure a secure visit by our Australian counterparts, the tour has been derailed. CSA has incurred significant costs related to the planning stages and the cancellation of the tour represents a serious financial loss. In this challenging period for cricket and its member countries we believe the stance taken by CA is regrettable and will have a serious impact on the sustainability of the less wealthy cricket-playing nations.”

Australia’s demands are why South Africa’s T20 squad for their series in Pakistan, which will follow the second Test in Rawalpindi starting on Thursday, includes only four of the players in the Test squad. The rest had to return home in time to go into quarantine, as per the Aussies’ conditions.

What now for South Africa? Pakistan are due in the country for a white-ball tour in April. Might they be persuaded to arrive early for a Test series? Probably not: the PSL will be played from February 20 to March 22.

If it isn’t sandpaper rubbing South Africans the wrong way about Australians it’s a vicious virus. Before that, it was Shane Warne resorting to something close to mental cruelty in his clashes with Daryll Cullinan. And Merv Hughes levelling a bat at a spectator at the Wanderers, where fans asked Adam Gilchrist who fathered his children. Pat Symcox had an entire roast chicken thrown at him — among other, less tasty missiles — while he was fielding on the boundary at the SCG. David Warner looked up from the slips at St George’s Park to see fans wearing masks depicting the face of his wife’s former lover. Faf du Plessis was hounded through Adelaide airport, in a rolling confrontation with television crews that turned physically nasty, because of a messy moment involving a mint and a cricket ball.

With Covid, as with so much else, Australians and South Africans might as well be on different planets. Perhaps this is confirmation that they are. It used to be that you could take the Aussies out of Australia, but you couldn’t take Australia out of the Aussies. Now, it seems, neither is possible.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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SA’s newlook support staff excites Rabada

“He would have had to make a decision whether he was going to walk away or stay, and he stayed. I’m really glad he did.” – Kagiso Rabada on Enoch Nkwe.

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

KAGISO Rabada can come across as jaded, which is hardly surprising considering he is among the hardest working fast bowlers in world cricket. But he couldn’t contain his excitement on his first day in South Africa’s new-look dressingroom on Thursday.

“It’s amazing to have someone like Jacques Kallis in,” Rabada said in an audio interview released by Cricket South Africa (CSA). “He’s a great of the game. So is Mark Boucher. To hear their knowledge … it doesn’t even have to be skill-based, but mentally how you want to approach certain situations. So it’s great to have them around because they almost speed up your learning process.

“It’s also great to have Charl Langeveldt back. I really enjoy working with him. He’s in the same light as Mark and Jacques. They know what they’re talking about. They played at this level for a very long time.

“Everything is well-drilled and well-oiled. There’s no hesitation. They have a plan, they’re really decisive on what needs to happen. But at the same time it’s not very strict. There’s an expectation on every player to do the minimum of what is required, and the rest is up to you. You can liberate yourself.”

Tuesday was South Africa’s men’s team’s first day back at work after the Test series in India in October, when the visitors lost their shape, their game, their resolve, their basics and the series, 3-0. Enoch Nkwe was the interim team director with Lance Klusener the batting coach for the T20 series — he was not replaced for the Tests — and Vincent Barnes and Justin Ontong the bowling and fielding coaches. A few weeks on, only Ontong has kept his job. Boucher is now the head coach with Nkwe as his deputy. Kallis and Langeveldt head the batting and bowling departments. They will take South Africa into the four-match Test series against England, which starts in Centurion next Thursday.

Much of the blame for what happened in India has been laid at the door of Nkwe’s inexperience: he had neither played at the highest level nor been an international head coach before the India tour. But Rabada was relieved that Nkwe, who at 36 and with a level four coaching certificate in his kitbag has the potential to return to the top job, had not been lost to the team.

“Enoch is someone I’ve worked with since I was at age-group level, along with guys like ‘Quinny’ [Quinton de Kock] and Temba [Bavuma],” Rabada said. “The guys who’ve worked with him, they know his quality. He’s done really well at the Strikers and the Lions [domestic teams who won five titles across all formats under Nkwe’s guidance]. He’s no doubt a valuable person to have in the changeroom. He would have had to make a decision whether he was going to walk away or stay, and he stayed. I’m really glad that he did because I’ve got a relationship with him and so do the other players. Especially the young players who are in the T20 format; guys like Rassie [van der Dussen] and Dwaine [Pretorius]. They know him well and they know the value he can bring. I certainly know that, too. He’s made a decision to invest in the team and I’m really glad that he’s done so.”

South Africa’s series in India was their first in the World Test Championship (WTC), and the result means they are at the bottom of the standings. Thus they have the chance to redeem themselves against an England team no doubt still pondering their 1-0 series loss in New Zealand early this month. But Rabada wasn’t about to take his eye off the ball for the sake of what remains little more than a marketing ploy.

“The [WTC] can put unnecessary pressure on us right now,” he said. “We shouldn’t really be looking at that. Yes, we don’t have any points and it does look bad. But if we can focus on what we want to do that should look after itself. We hadn’t been thinking about it, but when you mention it and you think about where we are on that table, it can get you into the mindset where you need to catch up. But at the moment we need to focus on the product and the by-product will look after itself.”

England’s ongoing navel-gazing can only help the South Africans, but they know they need to reassure their home crowds that they have turned a corner after India — and to translate the changes that have swept through the game off the field into positive performances where it matters most: in the middle.

“We’re going through a transition phase, and we need to see if we can step up,” Rabada said. “We do believe that we can. We spoke about where we want to go and where we’re at right now, and I think everyone is on the same page, which makes things a lot clearer.”

Winning the series would go a long way to making things clearer still. South Africa have not beaten England at home since 1999-00, when Boucher was in the team and CSA’s acting director of cricket, Graeme Smith, then just 19, had yet to make his debut.

First published by Cricbuzz.

WCT points system favours smaller sides. Or does it?

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in London

THE big boys of world cricket might have been done a disservice by the structure of the World Test Championship (WCT).

Or could it be that democracy has finally come to a sport obsessed with hierarchy?

The rules seem fair: teams will contest 120 points in each series, so victory in a game that’s part of a two-match rubber will be worth more than winning in a five-match series.

Players concussed during a match can be replaced by a like-for-like substitute, which will prompt thoughts of what a difference it might have made to South Africa’s entire 2019 men’s World Cup campaign had they been able to send in David Miller when Hashim Amla was smacked on the helmet in the fourth over of their first innings in the tournament.

Names and numbers now appear on players’ shirts, which earned the approval even of arch-traditionalists like Geoffrey Boycott in conversation with Jonathan Agnew on the BBC’s Test Match Special on the first day of the men’s Ashes at Edgbaston on Thursday.

“Excellent; should have been done years ago,” Boycott said.

“It’s not for you and I — we don’t need numbers to know who people are. We can see that from the way they walk or run. That’s our job.

“But the ordinary public …”

Teams will be docked two points for every over they fall foul of the required rate, which will alarm chronically tardy South Africa.

The top two teams in the standings will meet in the final at Lord’s in June 2021.

All good. But the devil is in the details.

Some sides will play significantly more two-match rubbers — where wins are worth 60 points each — than five-match affairs, where success translates into only 24 points.

Pakistan, New Zealand and Sri Lanka each have five two-match series on their schedule, Bangladesh and West Indies four, India and South Africa three, Australia two and England just the one.

But only two five-match rubbers will be played. England are involved in both, against Australia and India.

So Pakistan, New Zealand and Sri Lanka would earn more than twice as many points — 600 — if they win all 10 of their two-match series games than the 240 England would bank for winning the same number of matches in their five-game rubbers.

Conversely, losing in a two-match series would mean exponentially more in the standings than going down in a five-game affair.

So perhaps cricket’s heavyweights haven’t done themselves a nasty after all.

But wouldn’t it be fun if it turns out that way.

SA face ‘toughest start’ to WTC, says Du Plessis

“For the last while we have longed to have something to play for that gives proper context to Test cricket.” – Faf du Plessis on the World Test Championship

TMG

TELFORD VICE in London

FAF du Plessis has acknowledged that South Africa face the most challenging beginning to the men’s World Test Championship (WCT).

His team’s first engagement will be a series in India in October, followed by a home rubber against England in October — the same schedule that played out badly for South Africa four seasons ago.

“We probably have the toughest start,” Du Plessis was quoted as saying in a Cricket South Africa release on Tuesday.

“But everyone will play everyone, so it doesn’t really matter.”

India are deservedly the No. 1-ranked team while England won the World Cup earlier this month — a triumph that, albeit achieved arguably undeservedly, has revitalised the game from top to bottom in this country.

How the English pitch up in South Africa in December will depend on their performance in the Ashes, which starts on Thursday, and their two-match series in New Zealand in November and December.

But there is doubt about the pitches South Africa will encounter in India: they will be difficult to bat on, perhaps to an unfair degree.

That’s what happened in their last series there, in November 2015, when the Indians’ reaction to losing both white-ball rubbers was to prepare pitches for the Tests that favoured their team to an outrageous degree.

So much so that the surface for the third Test in Nagpur was damned as “poor” by the International Cricket Council.

South Africa limped home with a 3-0 hiding to face England, who beat them 2-1.

Nonetheless, Du Plessis welcomed the establishment of the WCT, calling it “something new and quite exciting for this format”.

“For the last while we have longed to have something to play for that gives proper context to Test cricket,” he was quoted as saying.

“The Proteas have had some cracking contests in bilateral series over the last couple of years, and going forward the stakes are high because every series matters over a period of two years with it culminating in a final at Lord’s.”

The top nine Test teams will play 27 series comprising 71 matches, with the top two sides set to meet in the final in June 2021.

A total of 120 points will be on offer in every rubber of at least two matches, and awarded differently depending on the number of games.

“It’s refreshing; as the players we are looking forward to this new chapter of Test cricket.”

Du Plessis is South Africa’s captain in all formats, but he built his career as a Test player — and still regards his whites as his Sunday best.

“I feel Test cricket is in a healthy state. The players who play all three formats will attest to the fact that Test cricket is the purest format of the game and it is still the No. 1 format.

“The younger generation may enjoy the hustle and bustle of T20 cricket but when a Test match goes down to the final hour on the fifth day, that entertainment is hard to beat.”

So Du Plessis, along with South Africans disappointed by South Africa’s first-round exit from the 2019 World Cup, may be surprised to know he is most successful as a captain at one-day level.

South Africa have won 71.79% of their ODIs under him and 60% of their T20s.

Tests? Much more goes into winning in the most challenging format than in the white-ball stuff, but there’s no arguing with the fact that Du Plessis’ Test winning percentage of 58.62 is his lowest.

The WTC is a good reason to change that.

SA draw short straw in World Test Championship

The WTC could help correct a tendency to prepare hometown pitches.

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in London

CRICKET won’t be the same once the first ball is bowled in the first men’s Test between England and Australia at Edgbaston on Thursday.

There will be names and numbers on the backs of the players’ shirts, and at stake — along with the Ashes — will be points in the World Test Championship (WTC), which the International Cricket Council (ICC) launched on Monday.

Every series of two or more matches will be worth 120 points, and the results weighted accordingly.

Winning a Test in a two-match rubber will earn 60 points. A draw buys 20 points and a tie 30.

In five-Test affairs like the Ashes, winning banks 24 points, drawing eight and tieing 12.

The final will be played in the United Kingdom in June 2021, after 71 matches in 27 series.

And, much like they did in the 2019 World Cup, when they played three games — including against co-favourites England and India — in the opening week, South Africa have drawn the short straw.

For their first trick in the WTC, they will have to go to India to face Virat Kohli’s team in a series of three matches in October.

“We are awaiting the [WTC] with great enthusiasm as it adds context to the longest format of the game,” Kohli was quoted as saying in an ICC release.

“Test cricket is very challenging and coming out on top in the traditional form is always highly satisfying.

“The Indian team has done really well in recent years and will be fancying its chances in the championship.”

How far might Kohli will go to try and win it will be an important question for survivors of South Africa’s series in India in November 2015.

Having been beaten in both white-ball rubbers, the Indians prepared pitches unfairly tilted in favour of their spinners for the Tests.

One of those surfaces, a wretched Marie biscuit of a strip in the third Test in Nagpur, was duly damned as “poor” by the ICC.

The Indians were fortunate that the pitch in Mohali, where the series started, wasn’t similarly condemned.

South Africa lost 3-0, and the experience put them in such shaky shape mentally that they crashed to England at home in the following months.

They also learnt something: the Wanderers pitch in India’s series in South Africa in January 2018 came close to being declared dangerous.

Surfaces in South Africa have since veered in that direction more often than not.

In the 10 years before the series against India last year, wickets in Tests in South Africa fell an average of 32.18 runs apart.

In the last dozen matches played there, starting with the India rubber, that figure has shrunk to 25.26.

South Africa are even bigger victims of the practice.

They averaged 40.58 per wicket at home in the 10 years before the Indians arrived, and have since slipped to 28.35.

That’s a difference of 12.23 — too big to write off as an anomaly.

The WTC could help correct this tendency, because the points will be awarded to the visiting team if a pitch is branded unfit and thus causes a match to be abandoned.

But no such action is part of the punishment for a surface that is merely poor, and that’s a pity.

We’ll see in October how close the Indians come to crossing the line between poor and unfit.

Here we go again, but Test cricket should get its championship this time

Now that the big three have been dismantled as an axis of power – although their authority remains as real as ever – the World Test Championship is alive and kicking.

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE in Lisbon

THE setting was as unreasonably auspicious as it could be. On the far side of the road the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, its 82 domes gleaming white in the black desert night, the almost 40-million Swarovski crystals in its chandeliers twinkling to no-one in particular, the more than two-billion hand-tied knots of its carpet at last untrod, lay silent and vast.

On our side of the road the Ritz Carlton Hotel paled in opulence even though it seemed to stretch across time zones.

If, as you walked the marble floors, you followed the signs posted every couple of hundred metres — the hotel has more than 2 000 square metres of “event space” and you could just about make out in the distance, on a large flag outside the door of one of many conference rooms, the International Cricket Council (ICC) logo.

There, a hundred or so people were gathered in their finery to be wined and dined. Many of them, on hearing this week’s news about the future of test cricket, might have checked their glassware cupboards.

Each had been presented that night in Abu Dhabi with a smart black box that contained two whisky tumblers.

“ICC World Test Championship,” (WTC) had been sandblasted into the base of each. It was October 12, 2013, when the branding for that event was launched.

Dave Richardson, then and still the ICC’s chief executive, spoke ardently about the need for context in cricket’s oldest, grandest but steadily less relevant format, and how the WTC — which was to have started in 2017 — would lend it exactly that.

Those tumblers have become party pieces, rinsed out and poured into for house guests to have a laugh about the suits’ inability to organise a piss-up in a brewery, albeit that they managed quite fine in an expensive hotel that evening.

Not quite five months later, after a round of ICC meetings, it was left to Richardson to explain why the board had vetoed the idea.

“We were always struggling to find a format for the WTC that could be completed in a relatively short space of time, and that would not lead to more damage than good,” he said.

“In the absence of having nothing in place the WTC was quite good for cricket. However if you look at it the way the board has looked at it now, we’ve got the rankings system which is becoming more and more prominent.”

The bigger picture at the time was that the big three were in the throes of formalising their grip on cricket, and decisions at the fateful ICC meeting had been taken without a vote because, then ICC president Alan Isaac said “the content of the resolutions and some of the detail behind them” were still being discussed. Nonetheless it had been decided to scrap the WTC.

Now that the big three have been dismantled as an axis of power — although their authority remains as real as ever — the WTC is again alive and kicking. At least it will be from July next year until the end of April 2021.

“Bringing context to bilateral cricket is not a new challenge, but with the release of this FTP [Future Tours Programme], our members have found a genuine solution that gives fans around the world the chance to engage regularly with international cricket that has meaning and the possibility of a global title at the end,” Richardson said in a release on Wednesday.

A request for him to elaborate on what has given the ICC confidence that the plan will survive this time was politely declined by the organisation’s media office: “At the moment we’re not saying anything further re the WTC. We will do at some stage, though.”

Who could blame the people who have to jump through the hoops as set by the suits their reticence to say too much? As they’ve discovered, they don’t know when and where the hoops will be moved.

For now let’s be quietly thankful that something is being done about cricket being eaten by its T20 self.