Vineyard Hotel – Bulletproof Truth

Should elite sport happen during Covid?

“People need some normality, but you could argue whether sport could be regarded as a necessity to normalise our lives. Do you really need sport?” – Morné du Plessis

Telford Vice | Cape Town

TEN minutes is not a long time. Unless they are the last 10 minutes of a life. Then they could be desperate, wretched, long minutes of pain and suffering. Ten minutes is how long it takes to drive from Cape Town’s Vineyard Hotel to Groote Schuur Hospital, where many Covid-19 cases are treated. If a hotel that close to the hospital was given over to Groote Schuur’s caregivers, someone else would cook their meals and make their beds while they focused on keeping people alive. People who are 10 minutes away hoping to live far longer than that.

Who would pick up the bill? Us, the taxpayers. And we would rightfully expect the hotel to offer its lowest rate — and better — to help facilitate this act of national service. Might this happen? Probably not. Because doctors and nurses are not cricketers.

The Vineyard was sealed off from the real world when England’s men’s team came to South Africa in November. Nothing mattered except that both squads and their support staff, who stayed there, should be kept safe from the virus.

The hotel’s website says its rooms go for between R2,315 and R6,680 a night. England arrived on a charter flight that cost their board more than R7-million. Cricket South Africa (CSA) conducted around 600 coronavirus tests, at R850 a pop, during England’s visit. Without considering the additional spending on sanitation and security, that amounts to more than R8-million. That’s enough to buy almost 15,000 doses of the Moderna vaccine or nearly 150,000 of the AstraZeneca version. And yet the money was spent on trying to accomplish nothing else but put 22 men on a cricket field for a few hours, and pump broadcast revenue into CSA’s coffers.

Beyond the propriety of spending so much money in so frivolous a cause in such dire times lurk the ethical questions of the misappropriation of the services paid for by those funds paid. Why should mere sportspeople clog the process to have tests analysed when others, like taxi drivers and supermarket staff, are much more deserving? Why should they be tested more frequently than those drivers and staff? Why should their results come back faster, as has happened?

England’s tour failed when they went home early because of positive tests within their bio-bubble, the chances of which can only have been increased by their insistence on being allowed to play golf. They certainly did — on eight different days at five different courses located between 13 and 72 kilometres from the hotel. Why did England not see the danger of their demand? Why did CSA acquiesce?

Cricket seems to have a bigger Covid blindspot than most sports. Australia, the only international team capable of out-Englishing the English, are due in South Africa in March and April. Not only are Cricket Australia trying to convince their government to allow the players to jump the queue and be vaccinated before they come to this country, they are also insisting that staff at their designated hotel, the Irene Country Club near Centurion, quarantine for three weeks before the squad arrives. Even for Australians, the arrogance is breathtaking.

Or is it? Do we need sport as much as sport needs our attention? Maybe all an exhausted doctor or nurse wants to do after a demoralising shift in a Covid ward is to turn on the television and watch a game.

Morné du Plessis, the former Springbok captain and manager of the 1995 World Cup-winning side, had questions of his own: “You could ask who should get the vaccination first. Who should be tested first? Shouldn’t it be frontline workers? Shouldn’t all those resources be going there? That is the most human response.

“People need some normality, but you could argue whether sport could be regarded as a necessity to normalise our lives. Do you really need sport?”

He also had a few answers: “Elite sport is just the tip of the pyramid. I believe the rest is important as well, and that’s what’s really suffering. But things like schools and medical issues are at the top of the list when it comes to Covid. Sport is right at the bottom.

“That said, proportionately, what is really spent on testing elite sportspeople? Elite sport is a huge industry and you could argue that it’s worth keeping going because it’s not harming anybody. If anything, we’re all suffering from a huge withdrawal and it does give you some respite. Although watching a rugby match at an empty Newlands doesn’t excite me, to be honest. It just reminds you of what you’re missing.

“In the big scheme of things, it’s not a question that’s going to change the world. I think we’ve got bigger things to worry about. The fact that a few sportspeople are being tested excessively probably isn’t that worth worrying about.”

For Neil Tovey, who led Bafana Bafana to triumph at the 1996 Africa Cup of Nations, people like us were front and centre: “It’s important that, with the fans not being able to go to the stadiums, sport continues. Imagine being locked up indoors all day as a fan and not being able to go and see your favourite team. At least you can watch them play on television.

“The other side of the coin is that the league has resources. If I wanted to I could get tested for Covid two, three, four times in a week. As long as I pay the money. Footballers pay the money. And they’re not taking up space in hospitals. It’s good that they do get tested regularly because that keeps them out of hospital beds.

“They’re staying in bubbles, so those hotels are doing a little bit of business. They’re not having holidaymakers roll in and out, but at least sport is helping.

“So, no, I don’t think sport is a burden on the fight against the virus. And that’s not me being a spoilt brat in the football fraternity. It’s just a logical answer.”

Football is on a different planet in In England, where the 20 Premier League clubs will shell out £1.6-billion, the equivalent of R33.3-billion, in salaries to 731 players this season. That’s an average of £2.2-million — almost R46-million. Last April those players balked at taking a 30% pay cut.

Gordon Taylor, the chief executive of the Professional Footballers’ Association, said at the time that “if [players’] money is being affected, they want to know what’s happening with it and they would like to have the choice of where it goes to”.

So the players decided, rather than make billionaire club owners richer, they would pledge £4-million — 0.25% of the total salary bill — to the National Health Service (NHS). The Premier League itself handed over £20-million to the NHS, but the players’ decision earned more headlines.

UK health secretary Matt Hancock tweeted: “Warmly welcome this big-hearted decision. You are playing your part.” Gary Lineker posted: “Footballers are doing their bit as I was confident they would. Proud of our players.”

The players, represented by the captains of the 20 clubs, took four days to make their decision. Four days is a lot longer than 10 minutes. Especially your last 10 minutes.

First published by Daily Maverick 168.

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CSA boss slams ‘negative’ England

“There is an awkward narrative coming out that third world countries can’t manage these things properly. In my view, we have been managing the virus much better than England has been.” – Zak Yacoob, CSA interim board chair

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

THE leader of CSA’s interim board has slammed England for abandoning their tour of South Africa. Eoin Morgan’s squad were scheduled to leave the country on Thursday with half of the six white-ball games they were supposed to play postponed indefinitely.

Zak Yacoob, the retired judge who chairs the board, has called that decision “negative”, rejected the theory that South Africa’s Covid-19 protocols were not up to standard, and said South Africa’s players resented their opponents being afforded what was considered preferential treatment. He stopped short of demanding an apology from the English.

Seven positive tests for the virus among members of the South African and English squads, as well as two staff members at the Vineyard hotel in Cape Town where the players and their support staff were staying in a bio-secure environment, were announced after England arrived on November 17. The two cases in the England camp were later declared false positives.

England won the T20I series 3-0, but the start of the ODI rubber was delayed three times in four days because of positive tests. That prompted England’s players to drive the decision to scupper the tour.

“What I want to negate is the idea that our provision of services was sub-standard, and that there is any justification for the English saying that they did not want to participate and going home,” Yacoob told an online press conference on Thursday. “The facts are that ultimately [England] were negative.”

Yacoob was adamant CSA’s anti-virus measures were up to scratch: “We have gone into our protocols, and we think that [they] have been very good. There may have been an issue of psychological troubles. People may have felt nervous and complicated about the false positives, and so on. We do not wish to blame the English, but we wish to say absolutely and completely that any notion that they went away was our fault is completely wrong.”

South Africa has around half the coronavirus infection rate compared to the United Kingdom, a fact not lost on Yacoob: “There is an awkward narrative coming out that third world countries can’t manage these things properly. In my view, we have been managing the virus much better than England has been.”

The visitors took a dim view of South Africa’s squad gathering for a barbecue on the first evening that the parties were in the bubble. But whereas a small number of the South Africans took to the golf course once, CSA has confirmed that some of the English played golf on eight separate days at five different courses between 13 kilometres and 72 kilometres away from the hotel.

Yacoob suggested England recognise they were more privileged than their hosts: “The only criticism [of the protocols] I can make is that we were too lax with the English and their desire to do things that, in our strict view, they shouldn’t be doing. Unfortunately we were stronger in preventing our players from doing things and we allowed the visitors a little more laxity. We favoured the visitors just a little, not enough to compromise the thing. The problem with that was that it did give rise to some feelings of unfairness as far as our players were concerned. The board regretted that a great deal.”

England were also accused of violating virus protocols by training in an out-of-bounds area at Newlands. They said the practice facilities that were provided were “unacceptable” and that they had created “a security cordon to ensure the players and coaches could enter the facility safely”.

Did Yacoob want the ECB to say sorry for the tour going awry? “I don’t think we want an apology from anyone, but if they say lies about us we will defend ourselves. I’m prepared to leave it on the basis that we do understand, although it is sometimes difficult for us to understand, the sensitivities of the matter. We’ve got this virus for the first time and we do understand how people can get put off. Therefore we have to give people the benefit of the doubt.”

Sri Lanka are due to arrive in South Africa next week to play two Tests, but there has been speculation that SLC wanted the series moved to Sri Lanka or postponed. Yacoob said he was “95% certain” the Lankans would keep their end of the bargain. He was less sure about Australia, who are scheduled to tour for three Tests in February and March: “It depends on what Australia thinks is in its political interest. Australia is a powerhouse in cricket, and powerful people are usually laws unto themselves.”

Reports have said CA are considering asking CSA to move the series to Perth, but Graeme Smith, CSA’s director of cricket, said conversations had yet to start: “We’re only having our first operational planning meeting with CA next week. There’s been no engagement up until this point.”

As Yacoob was appointed by Nathi Mthethwa, the minister of sport, he is free to kick a hole in the company line, rather than toe it, without some CSA suit trying to rein him in. And it’s bracingly refreshing to hear someone attached to an organisation known for weasel wording its way into and out of almost every situation voice their views with such strength and clarity. But he may want to spare a thought for people like Smith, who could have to clear the air of tetchiness when next he speaks to his English and Australian counterparts.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Other teams could follow England out of tours to South Africa

“Since the ODI series is being postponed and not cancelled CSA won’t be losing money as much as monies will be deferred to later in the FTP cycle.” – Kugandrie Govender, CSA acting chief executive

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

ENGLAND’S tour of South Africa veered into acrimony even as it was called off over health fears on Monday. Seven positive tests for Covid-19 announced after the visitors arrived on November 17 cast a pall over the venture, which was put out of its misery with half the scheduled matches unplayed. The decision is a crushing blow to CSA’s hopes of rekindling the game in South Africa in the aftermath of the pandemic, and a genuine threat to the game’s already shaky financial prospects.

Sri Lanka, Australia and Pakistan are due to tour in the coming weeks and months, but they will surely reconsider in the wake of the problems England’s visit exposed. Cricbuzz has learnt that a concerned SLC resolved on Sunday night to discuss on Monday the wisdom of the Sri Lankans playing two Tests in South Africa, at Centurion and the Wanderers starting on December 26.

The board was meeting as news broke that England were leaving South Africa early. They are due in Sri Lanka in January, and the SLC will know that the ECB could object to their team playing there if the Sri Lankans have been in South Africa. If England don’t tour, SLC will lose significant broadcast revenue. Even so, it is understood SLC has decided the tour to South Africa remains on the cards, perhaps because the Gauteng area, where their team will be based, has fewer active coronavirus cases than the Western Cape, where England are. But a second wave of infections is expected to rise in Gauteng in January. SLC is set to make a firm decision next week.

The Australians, who are due in South Africa in February and March for three Tests, have also taken note of the situation in the country. “It’s very concerning and they need to consider the safety of the players, first and foremost,” David Heslop, a biosecurity and risk management expert, told the Sydney Morning Herald on Tuesday (Australian Eastern Daylight Time). “Even with the best protections in a high prevalence country where there is a lot of COVID around you may simply be unable to pick up everything.”

Monday’s release said CSA and the ECB had “agreed to postpone the remaining matches” and that “the decision was taken jointly by the two boards to ensure the mental and physical health and welfare of players from both teams”.

Kugandrie Govender, CSA’s acting chief executive, was quoted as saying: “The concern over the mental health impact of recent events on all involved is not one that we as CSA or the ECB take lightly and the decision to postpone the tour is the most responsible and reasonable course of action for us.” ECB chief executive Tom Harrison was quoted as saying: “We have always maintained that the welfare of our players and management is paramount. We were concerned about the potential impact that recent developments might have on the wellbeing of the touring party, and so after consultation with CSA we have jointly made the decision to postpone the remaining matches in this series, in best interest of the players’ welfare.” Both were careful to put on record that they “look forward” to the ODIs being played in South Africa in the future.

Unlike the three T20Is at Newlands and in Paarl, which went ahead as planned, the ODI series suffered false starts at Newlands on Friday and in Paarl on Sunday because of positive tests for Covid-19. On Sunday night a proposed match at Newlands on Monday was called off.

Each game scheduled in South Africa that isn’t played is believed to cost CSA more than USD665,000 in lost broadcast revenue. So it could already be USD1.9-million out of pocket with more bad news to come. But Govender told Cricbuzz CSA hadn’t sacrificed income: “Since the ODI series is being postponed and not cancelled CSA won’t be losing money as much as monies will be deferred to later in the FTP cycle. So over the four-year period, it will even out. [The] ECB and CSA are sharing this responsibility.”

Before the pandemic hit the South African Cricketers’ Association projected that CSA could be USD65.9-million in debt by the end of the 2022 rights cycle. Covid-19 can only have an adverse effect on that equation. Testing South Africa’s squad and support staff during England’s tour alone has probably cost close on USD8,000.

Besides the three South Africa players who have contracted the disease, two England players have tested positive, along with two workers at the Vineyard Hotel in Cape Town, which the parties are sharing. Only one of those cases of the virus was reported before the squads went into a bio-secure environment, which sparked concerns over the bubble’s security levels and whether the rules were being obeyed.

That narrative turned testy on Monday after the emergence of an email, seen by Cricbuzz and dated Thursday, from Newlands’ stadium manager to England’s liaison officer, CSA officials and the police, telling them that “the England cricket team has not adhered to the arrangements as agreed by all in the ESSPC [Event Security and Safety Planning Committee] meetings”. The ground’s normal net facilities are out of bounds because of coronavirus regulations and major construction at Newlands. Instead, players are to use nets set up on the field.

“This serves to inform you that the England cricket team has accessed and used the nets today at their own risk,” the email read. “WPCA [Western Province Cricket Association] and the ESSPC will not be held liable or responsible for the safety and health of the England cricket team.”

A statement from an England spokesperson on Monday contested that version of the facts: “On arrival at Newlands on 3 December, we advised the venue that the three nets provided on the main pitch were not of a standard for conducive practice, as per the memorandum of understanding signed by the respective boards. Batsmen were unable to face seam bowlers on the nets on the main pitch as the surfaces were rendered and unacceptable. We requested with CSA that we would like to use the practice nets and that we would create a security cordon to ensure the players and coaches could enter the facility safely, as done previously on 28 November. This was confirmed by England’s security team, the team operations manager and the team doctor. We were satisfied with this outcome and we were able to practice in the net facility safely. The team also used the main outfield for fielding drills, a seam bowlers bowl through pitch and a number of nets were used for range-hitting against spin bowlers and coaches throws. As far as the England touring party are concerned, the safety and health of our players and coaches was not compromised.”

South Africans will smell the stink of what they perceive as England’s superiority complex in all of this, not least because the visitors have referred their two positive tests to doctors in London for confirmation. They will take the same view of the surprise said to emanate from the England camp when two South Africa players returned to normal activities sooner than expected from the isolation they went into after being identified as close contacts of their teammate who first tested positive.

“Our doctors aren’t good enough for them, our bubble isn’t good enough for them, not even our practice facilities are good enough for them,” the argument will go. “They knew how to get to the colonies. They know their way home. Good riddance.”

It isn’t that simple for CSA, whose key function is to make enough money to run the game in South Africa. So it needs all the attention it can get from teams like England, no matter how finicky or arrogant it is, or seems to be, to put up with them.

That’s part of the price the third world often pays when it collides with the first world. It isn’t fair, but it’s reality.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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Music for the meltdown of a cricket tour

If you were England, would you want to stay in South Africa any longer than it takes to get on a plane out of there?

TELFORD VICE | Paarl

THERE was a lot wrong with the picture at Boland Park in Paarl on Sunday at the moment the ODI series between South Africa and England was to have started. Only the middle stumps had been pitched at either end and the entire table remained roped off. The ground was as empty as the grass banks and stands all around. But there was no need to adjust your set.

The strains of Toto’s indestructible anthem to cheesiness oozed around the ground: “I bless the rains down in Africa …” Except it wasn’t raining in this patch of Africa. It was 27 degrees Celsius going up to 32 and as bright as the bubbles in the glasses of sparkling wine served at many nearby wineries. On a day as clear as this, you really can see forever. Only you couldn’t see any cricket.

The press who had arrived at Paarl’s lovely tree-ringed ground at least an hour before the scheduled start — as per Covid-19 regulations — knew something was up: there wasn’t a team bus in sight, much less players.

More positive tests for Covid-19 on Friday, this time among the workers in the hotel where both squads and their support staff are staying, had prompted a delayed start while England — who didn’t see the medics on Friday because, unlike the South Africans the day before, they had no cases of the virus to report — awaited the outcome of the brain-scraping they underwent on Saturday. “Whilst the ECB awaits ratification of those test results the decision has been taken to delay the start of today’s ODI match,” CSA and the ECB said in the day’s first statement. It would not be the last.

Around toss time, Sky and SuperSport commentators announced that the match had been abandoned. Half-an-hour into what should have been the contest, the ICC tweeted that the game had been abandoned. It quickly updated that status to “suspended”. Where was CSA’s confirmation? The silence was suffocating.

“‘Fools’ said I, ‘You do not know. Silence like a cancer grows …’” It wasn’t Simon and Garfunkel’s lilting, folksy, acoustic 1964 original version of the Sound of Silence that filled some of the emptiness at the ground. It was Disturbed’s growling, guttural, heavy metal 2015 version. The anger in the song met the frustration of the moment like a fist to the jaw.

An hour and 20 minutes after the coin was not tossed, a joint statement by CSA and the ECB arrived to say what everyone knew by then. But wait. There was more: “ … two members of the England touring party have returned unconfirmed positive tests for Covid-19 …”, and, “A decision on the remaining matches in the series will be taken once the results of the tests are ratified independently by medical experts.”

Remember that the first ODI had been originally scheduled for Newlands on Friday, and postponed to Monday after another South African positive test on Thursday — the third announced since England arrived on November 17. Remember that the last ODI remains set for Newlands on Wednesday. For now. *

Remember that Sam Billings, Lewis Gregory, Jason Roy, Liam Livingstone and Tom Curran — all members of England’s squad — are supposed to play in the Big Bash League in Australia after the tour, although word is Curran will withdraw. If you were among them, with decent money on the line, would you want to stay in South Africa any longer than it takes to get on a plane out of there?

Now remember the chorus from the Indigo Girls’ deep-thinking Closer to Fine: “And I went to the doctor, I went to the mountains. I looked to the children, I drank from the fountains. There’s more than one answer to these questions. Pointing me in a crooked line.”

Sorry, Girls. There is one answer only, and it’s ringing ever louder: the tour will surely be called off and damned as a catastrophe. In that case, what happens to the ICC World Cup Super League points that were on offer? And to the USD4.2-million CSA would have earned from the broadcasters, who got only the bang of three T20Is for their buck? And to South Africa’s plan to host Sri Lanka, Australia and Pakistan in the coming weeks and months? What happens to cricket in a country where the game was in bad shape long before England arrived?

“I never meant to cause you any sorrow. I never meant to cause you any pain.” That was Prince and the Revolution grinding their way, as louche as you like, through Purple Rain, the last song played at the ground on Sunday, and perhaps the most apt, before the DJ pulled the plug and the real sounds of silence eerily reined.

The void was occupied by a single thundering question: how had this gone so badly wrong? It would be easy to sling the blame CSA’s way; to say they should have ensured their bubble was secure. But CSA is not in the bio-security business. Thanks to years of mismanagement, it is barely in the cricket business. So when money beckons in the shape of a tour by England, and the players want to make the most of their time in the fairest Cape by spending some of it, say, on the golf course, you try to accommodate them. Do you thus bend the bubble rules? Do you have a choice?

A question for the Vineyard Hotel, one of Cape Town’s finest, where the squads are staying amid other squads — the police variety, to keep things as they should be — what the hell happened? “At this stage, it is not clear how the staff members became infected as neither have left the bio-secure area since 16 November and they do not work on the same team or in the same area,” Roy Davies, the general manager, was quoted as saying in a release by the hotel. “Our Covid response team is endeavouring to establish all the facts and contact tracing is underway. Our number one priority is the safety and wellbeing of our staff and guests and we have placed all our resources and efforts into investigating and resolving the situation. Both infected members of staff and the [South Africa] player are currently isolated in on-site apartments some distance from the hotel which have been kept sterilised and available for this purpose.”

In other words, Mr Davies knows, or says he knows, about as much as the rest of us. If you’re part of the South Africa or the England camp, that is terrifying.

To take your mind off all that, you might have gone back to your room and turned on the television to watch Australia play India at the SCG in the second T20. Cricket, actual cricket, is unspooling as it should, and you feel the tug of its connecting thread. You see spectators, actual spectators, lapping it up. Everything is right with this picture. You do not adjust your set. Instead you feel the thread slacken as you slump into a funk on your bed.

*Monday’s match was cancelled, leading to speculation that games could be played at Newlands on Tuesday and Wednesday.

First published by Cricbuzz.

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