Cricketers are not herds of workers at mercy of bosses
In such happy and successful times on the field it seems churlish to strike a note of caution, but here goes anyway. And it has nothing to do with managing Lungi Ngidi’s workload. Some of the best people in the country are in charge of that, and of that of all the other fast bowlers. We’ll need them all to be at their best for the Australia Tests in March.
That is, of course, if they all go ahead as planned. There is a realistic chance that one or two, if not all four, will be affected by Cricket SA-induced industrial action. Not by caterers, ground staff, broadcasters or security guards, but by the players.
At the heart of the problem is the payment structure between Cricket SA and the players that is up for renegotiation in April, but it is also about respect.
The players believe that the revenue-share model of the past 12 years is fundamental to their careers and those of future generations. It is also the model in place in Australia and New Zealand. Midway through 2017 Cricket Australia decided to “renegotiate” with the Australian Cricketers Association and received a bloody nose and an embarrassing climbdown for its troubles.
Unlike other trade unions in larger industries, professional cricketers associations have just a few hundred members. They do not have inflated or distant leadership groups that remain out of touch with grassroots feelings.
The South African Cricketers’ Association (Saca’s) president is JP Duminy and he has Omphile Ramela, Farhaan Behardien, Stephen Cook and former women’s captain Mignon du Preez as fellow board members along with CE Tony Irish. When they say they represent the feelings and wishes of their about 240 members, it is fair to say they do. And they believe that having a vested interest in the game — in good times and bad — is crucial and nonnegotiable.
The Australian players said the same thing in 2017, only for their biggest stars — such as Steve Smith, David Warner and Mitchell Starc — to be approached individually by Cricket Australia with offers of lucrative, multiyear contracts.
It was a cynical attempt to divide them and it failed spectacularly. The “big name” Australian players were fighting not just their own corner, but for the careers of domestic players and the future of the women’s game.
The same is true of the bigname Proteas, many of whom are wealthy and financially secure outside of their national contracts. The principles at stake are far more important to them than the pay packet.
Interestingly, the man who took on the Australian players was Cricket Australia chairman David Peever, whose highprofile business background was with mining conglomerate Rio Tinto. The man who is, apparently, keen to return the Cricket SA-Saca relationship to one of “normal” employer/ employee status, is acting Cricket SA CE Thabang Moroe, whose background is in the mobile telecoms industry.
Peever had ruthlessly broken the mine workers union in Australia because there are hundreds of thousands of workers around the world willing to work under any conditions. Moroe, apparently, has a similar view about cricketers — and how money is made in the game.
“Ultimately the people that make money for cricket is Cricket SA, it’s not a union,” he said at the end of 2017. “I just have a view on how a company should be run from a management point of view and how a company needs to engage with a trade union.”
The statement enraged many of the country’s best domestic and national players. Apparently, he has already spoken informally about “clearing out” the current players if they insist on the revenue-sharing model and replacing them with under-19 players and other youngsters.
Obviously he couldn’t have meant it — he must know how quickly Cricket SA would sink without the millions from television broadcasters. But it is symptomatic of his determination to regain the oldfashioned “control” that administrators used to have over sportsmen long ago.
Much as cricket lovers know that Kagiso Rabada, Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla and, now, Ngidi, are special and not to be confused with hard-working mine workers or cellphone contracts, it isn’t about them.
It is about the cricketers of the future and their right to medical aid, career advice, a pension, counselling and a fair wage, none of which they had 15 years ago and all of which Saca has fought for them to now have.