One of the strongest creeds in the Proteas men’s team for the last seven years has been ‘no excuses.’ It started in India in 2015 when they played three out of four Tests on lamentably poor, under-prepared pitches on which they were duly dismembered in embarrassing fashion by the home side.
Thanks for highlighting the semantics around 'excuses' and 'reasons'. I've always thought this an essentially absurd distinction. Or at least, it's one that has become so in the sporting world, thanks to these terms being abused and tarnished.
That's particularly true in South Africa. Our macho culture and educational traditions (which are pretty well represented in most Proteas dressing rooms) have stigmatised anything that might sound remotely like an 'excuse', be it on the sports field or any aspect of life. Men don't complain, etc, etc. 'Okes' who point to any external factors in failure are mercilessly ribbed from a young age. In this culture, there is no such thing as a valid reason for something going wrong. Anything going against you must always be 100% down to your own lack of application. Which is plainly absurd. Taken to extremes, this assumption makes proper analysis and progress almost imossible. And it can mean you start fixing things that aren't broken.
As you suggest, the travel/jetlag/preparation issues ARE issues - how else can such a turnaround following the India series be explained? But if some kind of schoolboy hangover means nobody can talk about those issues without risking ridicule and being called an excuse-maker, nothing will change. Players keeping silent on this in some primal effort to show they can 'vasbyt' means administrators won't EVER get the message that jetlag and the virtual elimination of tour matches is counter-productive for the game and ultimately means those administators have fewer tickets to sell when games collapse after two days.
Whoever makes the decisions on the tour conditions is predominantly the cause of the nightmare that was experienced by the players. They were not just sleep walking.
Can you image this scenario. If the cricket board makes the arrangements, which is highly probable, while the players realise they are being put out for slaughter. They are not stupid. There would be obvious dissent unexpressed to the public by the other half of the cricket management, i.e., manager, captain and senior players. This latter group were not in a position to criticize the board for two reasons, code of conduct and the underlying confrontation relating to Boucher.
Where a body is out of synchronization and harmony within itself It cannot perform optimally. A fundamental law of nature!!!!l
OK, so it is the final hurrah of test 2, and what a stark contrast, so what happened between t1 and t2? Obviously test 1... that was the warm up, so if the 1 day per hour of the clock is to be believed, we played a warm up game, got in the 12 days of clock resetting, then test 2 should really be test 1 of 2 or 3...
The result of test 1 was garbage, it should be discounted and the match regulated to that of a friendly/warm up, it has no viable option to stand as a test, what is more concerning is that no NZ supporter or player agrees that test 1 was a farce, it is and will forever remain that, it was played under unfair conditions, both teams should be equal before and during the progress of the game, that is why we have subsitutes that are match fit, match ready, for the position in which they are asked to fill in, we no longer ask a bloke watching, to field, that is unfair to the fielding team, and to the spirit of the game..
NZ went against this spirit, there was praise all round for a junior that withdrew an appeal for a run out, and they then went on to loose the game, but the spirit of cricket thrived, until test 1 and NZ cricket murdered the spirit of the game... What is the harm of NZ cricket coming out and saying, "yeah we goofed..that was unfair to the tourists, to the spectators, to the sponsors, and more to the point, it was anti-social towards the spirit of the game..."
Cricket relies on the spirit and the 42 laws, sure you can play to the letter of all 42 laws, but the game is miserable, it is boring, and it just does not "feel right", test 1 never felt right, not from ball 1, not saying NZ cheated, they played to the letter, but not the spirit, and that is so sad, that they as a team cannot man up and say, "you know that never felt right..given what they, the visitors, went through to come here, and this is what happened.." How can no one feel any remorse or just a tiny pang of something human???
Thanks Neil. Ashwell Prince, Makaya & Vern said on tv Friday morning that they were always told by the docs that you need one day per hour's time difference to acclimatize. That was the scientific advice when they played. Always had a warm-up game too. NZ & SA are 11 hours apart... Anyway CSA cannot afford another cancelled tour. I can also fully understand Boucher not wanting to provide 'ammo' to CSA. But it's not right. Good luck for the 2nd test!
Thanks for highlighting the semantics around 'excuses' and 'reasons'. I've always thought this an essentially absurd distinction. Or at least, it's one that has become so in the sporting world, thanks to these terms being abused and tarnished.
That's particularly true in South Africa. Our macho culture and educational traditions (which are pretty well represented in most Proteas dressing rooms) have stigmatised anything that might sound remotely like an 'excuse', be it on the sports field or any aspect of life. Men don't complain, etc, etc. 'Okes' who point to any external factors in failure are mercilessly ribbed from a young age. In this culture, there is no such thing as a valid reason for something going wrong. Anything going against you must always be 100% down to your own lack of application. Which is plainly absurd. Taken to extremes, this assumption makes proper analysis and progress almost imossible. And it can mean you start fixing things that aren't broken.
As you suggest, the travel/jetlag/preparation issues ARE issues - how else can such a turnaround following the India series be explained? But if some kind of schoolboy hangover means nobody can talk about those issues without risking ridicule and being called an excuse-maker, nothing will change. Players keeping silent on this in some primal effort to show they can 'vasbyt' means administrators won't EVER get the message that jetlag and the virtual elimination of tour matches is counter-productive for the game and ultimately means those administators have fewer tickets to sell when games collapse after two days.
Whoever makes the decisions on the tour conditions is predominantly the cause of the nightmare that was experienced by the players. They were not just sleep walking.
Can you image this scenario. If the cricket board makes the arrangements, which is highly probable, while the players realise they are being put out for slaughter. They are not stupid. There would be obvious dissent unexpressed to the public by the other half of the cricket management, i.e., manager, captain and senior players. This latter group were not in a position to criticize the board for two reasons, code of conduct and the underlying confrontation relating to Boucher.
Where a body is out of synchronization and harmony within itself It cannot perform optimally. A fundamental law of nature!!!!l
OK, so it is the final hurrah of test 2, and what a stark contrast, so what happened between t1 and t2? Obviously test 1... that was the warm up, so if the 1 day per hour of the clock is to be believed, we played a warm up game, got in the 12 days of clock resetting, then test 2 should really be test 1 of 2 or 3...
The result of test 1 was garbage, it should be discounted and the match regulated to that of a friendly/warm up, it has no viable option to stand as a test, what is more concerning is that no NZ supporter or player agrees that test 1 was a farce, it is and will forever remain that, it was played under unfair conditions, both teams should be equal before and during the progress of the game, that is why we have subsitutes that are match fit, match ready, for the position in which they are asked to fill in, we no longer ask a bloke watching, to field, that is unfair to the fielding team, and to the spirit of the game..
NZ went against this spirit, there was praise all round for a junior that withdrew an appeal for a run out, and they then went on to loose the game, but the spirit of cricket thrived, until test 1 and NZ cricket murdered the spirit of the game... What is the harm of NZ cricket coming out and saying, "yeah we goofed..that was unfair to the tourists, to the spectators, to the sponsors, and more to the point, it was anti-social towards the spirit of the game..."
Cricket relies on the spirit and the 42 laws, sure you can play to the letter of all 42 laws, but the game is miserable, it is boring, and it just does not "feel right", test 1 never felt right, not from ball 1, not saying NZ cheated, they played to the letter, but not the spirit, and that is so sad, that they as a team cannot man up and say, "you know that never felt right..given what they, the visitors, went through to come here, and this is what happened.." How can no one feel any remorse or just a tiny pang of something human???
Thanks Neil. Ashwell Prince, Makaya & Vern said on tv Friday morning that they were always told by the docs that you need one day per hour's time difference to acclimatize. That was the scientific advice when they played. Always had a warm-up game too. NZ & SA are 11 hours apart... Anyway CSA cannot afford another cancelled tour. I can also fully understand Boucher not wanting to provide 'ammo' to CSA. But it's not right. Good luck for the 2nd test!