South African cricket’s plummet towards its current predicament of domestic mistrust and global insouciance suggests strongly that the wrong people have been in charge for too long, or that the ‘right’ people have been in charge for the wrong reasons.
CSA’s Operations Team have functioned with extraordinary and selfless commitment and determination in spite of the wearying and depressing lack of leadership above them.
History will ultimately judge, but the ECB have acknowledged that the curtailment of the England ODI series in December was premature and have promised to return to complete their commitments as soon as possible. Since then successful international tours have been completed by Sri Lanka’s men and Pakistan’s women while the Momentum One Day Cup and CSA T20 Challenge have been staged in bio-secure environments without incident. Cricket Australia have yet to show any interest in fulfilling their three-Test obligation.
Covid notwithstanding, there is no prospect of a long-term return to prosperity or even normality until the CSA board, constitution and executive staff are all confirmed. Without an infrastructure that can be relied upon, a board chairperson who can be trusted and an experienced CEO who commands respect at home and overseas, sponsors will not return to the game – and neither will a proportionate number of international fixtures.
I hear strong, unhappy talk in some circles that the Interim Board, appointed by the Minister of Sport, is intent on appointing ‘business people’ rather than ‘cricket people’ to run the game. This sounds like an excellent idea to me but it is only fair and proper that the concerns of ‘cricket people’ are recognised.
Cricket people come in various forms. There are those who know what it feels like to bat for a day in a Test match or bowl 20 overs, to spend eight weeks on tour and be away from home for eight months of the year.
There are those with a working grasp of logistics, finance, management or marketing, those who have a ‘feel’ for what it takes to make a large club or province ‘tick’, to keep people happy and stay financially afloat. They usually have a respectful relationship with the players but stay out of direct team involvement and certainly selection.
Then there are those who have loyally served their club at every level, mostly at weekends. They started in the junior ranks where they helped put the boundary markers out on match days, progressed to the 1st XI, became captain, then a selector then chairman. Along the way they coached, gave up Friday evenings to have committee meetings and encouraged family members to make snacks for sale on Saturdays to help raise a little extra cash for the club. All the while working in, and then running the family garage business.
All of them are ‘cricket people’ and all could have a role to play in the future of CSA. But they should not believe that they alone, or any combination of them, can run the game successfully, because it is not a ‘game’. It is a multi-billion rand business on which tens of thousands of people rely, directly or indirectly. And the business is in big trouble.
The new board structure can still be built in a variety of ways and numerical permutations. The only non-negotiable aspect is that there will be a majority of independent board members to limit the chances of provincial or regional bias. It was one of the cornerstones of the Nicholson Report almost a decade ago. If it had been implemented then, so much of today’s misery might have been avoided.
A nominations process for directors must be announced, and then a voting procedure. What defines ‘independent’? Who will be on the nominations panel? How will those seeking power, influence and prestige for personal gain or glory be dissuaded from standing? Or ‘campaigning’ for election?
It’s time for people of honesty and integrity to start trusting each other and to stand together - they represent a significant majority. It is time for openness and transparency on a scale never before seen in South African cricket. Let honest questions be asked openly without fear.
Like: why did former acting CEO, Kugandrie Govender, and former company secretary, Welsh Gwaza, refuse to comply with the Interim Board’s request to stage open Disciplinary Hearings into their conduct? Both former members of the executive are contesting their suspensions and protesting their innocence of the charges against them.
“The Interim Board wanted the process to be open so that members of the public and media could see and hear the evidence and make up their own minds,” said IB spokesperson, Judith February. “But both parties need to agree to an open hearing and they did not.”
The insertion of a clause insisting that all future board directors and members of the executive agree to openness in every disciplinary hearing and investigation staged under their watch might be a step in the right direction.
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Once again Manners, you display a deep understanding of the issues in SA Cricket. People like Dave Richardson, Mtutuzeli Nyoka and Norman Arendse need to be persuaded to make themselves available. And Jacques Faul should be permanently appointed as CEO. He's had 2 stints as a temporary CEO and worked out of the position because of his honesty and integrity, which never sat well with certain Board Members.
Independent board members are not the panacea people think they are.
I see the Board's role as being the watchdog for what the paid employees are doing, and to set and review strategy for the game - not the business (that's the CEO's job). Hence I believe the Board do need to be (at least in large majority) cricket people. Then your paid staff has to be a mix of corporates and cricket people.
My understanding of Australia's experience with independents on the Board has been that they have been mostly useless, just hitching their ride to whatever corporate bandwagon happens to be in vogue. But then you get the odd opposite issue - someone like David Peever who becomes interfering and controlling. His strategy and execution plan for the Player's Pay dispute was simply disastrous, bringing in his union-busting henchman to try and break-up the Players Association! A true cricket person would never treat professional cricketers like mine workers, but a former mining CEO would, and did!