CSA's looming Titanic Iceberg

New Zealand Test matches MUST be rescheduled

    South Africa’s two Test match series against New Zealand, scheduled for the first two weeks of February, may being going ahead, officially, but the clash of fixtures with the SA20, which doesn’t finish until February 10, means the saga is anything but finalised.

    Cricket South Africa Chief Executive, Pholetsi Moseki, issued an official decree that all players contracted to the SA20 would not be available for selection to New Zealand. A week later he announced that the Test tour would go ahead which illustrated “…our commitment to the Future Tours Programme.”

    If that sounds like Moseki has backed CSA into a ‘difficult corner’, think again. It is, in fact, just the tip of a monumental legal and financial iceberg which nobody, least of all the captain of the Titanic, is apparently able or willing to do anything to avoid.

    Moseki was provided with the dates for the SA20 on March 8 this year. January 10 to February 10. He was already in possession of the proposed dates of the Test matches from New Zealand Cricket. February 4-17, with a warm-up match from January 29-31. He accepted the Test schedule.

    Aware that CSA’s contract with the SA20 guarantees the availability of all of the country’s best players for the duration of the tournament, and keen not to breach that contract, he quickly issued the decree that they would be unavailable for the Test series. But that left CSA in breach of another contract. Their own, with their own players.

    The nationally contracted Proteas are legally bound to be available for all bilateral cricket. So, in effect, CSA ordered its own players to break their contract with…CSA. But we’re still at the iceberg’s tip.

    CSA’s contract with the SA20 also stipulates that CSA cannot schedule any bilateral, international cricket for the duration of the tournament. Another breach.

    Many players with SA20 contracts who would, or might, have been in contention for selection on the New Zealand tour, will be adversely affected financially. Those in the lowest auction bracket of R175,000 will point to the NZ tour fee of around R250,000 and have every right to ask for compensation.

    (Incidentally, if you’re wondering where R125k measures on the global scale of Test match fees, England players receive £30,000 – around R720k).

    Let’s move further afield now and look at the agreement CSA (and every other nation) signed with the ICC. The first regulation in the sanctioning of international cricket states: “International cricket must be given primacy and promoted above all else, because it remains the main showcase of the sport, the ultimate aspiration for young players joining the sport, and the main drive of the public interest and consequent commercial revenues that are the lifeblood of the sport”. It would be a challenge for CSA to argue that they have ticked that box.

    Meanwhile, South Africa’s Test coach, Shukri Conrad, has been busy scraping together a possible squad. County stalwarts David Bedingham (Durham) and Dane Paterson (Nottinghamshire) have been approached about their availability and Conrad’s time with the SA Under-19 squad a couple of years ago is proving useful – although most of that excellent squad now have SA20 contracts.

    The regular Test players, however, are seething. It is precisely because they are so angry that they have been so quiet on the subject. All of the players I spoke to insisted I did not quote them, even unattributed. Although the landscape of national honours may change in the years to come, at the moment the Proteas Test cap remains indisputably the greatest form of recognition. The prospect of a dozen of them being handed out like party hats infuriates those who have earned them.

    It seems abundantly clear to me that the players, as a collective, would be able to take legal steps to stop the New Zealand series taking place at the scheduled time. New Zealand Cricket would likely claim millions of dollars in compensation which CSA can ill-afford. But one way or another it seems CSA will be liable for compensation payments, either to NZC or their own players.

    The greatest cost, obviously, will be long-term. The Proteas men’s team still account for around 90% of CSA’s annual revenue. The entire professional game and large parts of the amateur game are kept alive by the Proteas. Sending a team of has-beens, wannabes and never-quite-made-its to play Test cricket in the World Test Championship will represent a devastating devaluation of the Proteas brand, one from which it will never recover.

    Broadcast rights will never be the same again but, frankly, there is a very real possibility that South Africa could find itself excluded from Test cricket. Every other nation is also trying to scoop as much chocolate as possible from their domestic T20 fondues, but not at the expense of Test cricket. CSA is, so far, the only one to give Test cricket a giant middle finger. It would make it a little easier for the others to squeeze the WTC into their schedules without a team which isn’t taking it seriously.   

  Everyone knows what happened to the Titanic. It didn’t have the option to reschedule. Cricket South Africa does. Its best players may have to force them to do so.