There are lots of decent, honest people in SA cricket
In an age of unprecedented sporting uncertainty and unpredictability, it seems slightly less mad than it should be that SA’s men’s cricket team could be gathering for a training camp in a week’s time in preparation for a tour of the Caribbean — without any confirmed venues.
The twin-island nation of Trinidad and Tobago had initially put its hand up to stage the two Test matches and five T20 internationals, but it seems their ministry of sport may not have communicated adequately with the ministry of health, which last week vetoed the tour.
The Trinidadian cabinet gave the tour its blessing but, like all responsible governments, it left the final word to chief medical officer Dr Roshan Parasram and his word was “no”.
Compared to much of the rest of the world, Trinidad’s Covid-19 caseload seems tiny, but it is a small country and has a total of only 540 hospital beds. There are currently just more than 3,200 active cases of the virus with around 200 being reported daily. The nation has suffered just under 200 fatalities. The vaccination rollout is in its infancy so the Proteas will have to travel elsewhere.
The South Africans are scheduled to travel on commercial flights through Paris and on to the former Dutch protectorate of
St Maarten, from where they will be flown on a charter plane to wherever they will play the West Indies. The island nations of St Kitts and Nevis and
St Lucia are current favourites.
To comply with quarantine protocols the Proteas will travel straight from the Caribbean to Ireland in July where they will play another three T20Is and three ODIs which will count towards qualification for the 50-over World Cup in 2023.
Another white-ball tour of Sri Lanka is scheduled for August, as is the ODI series in India which was cancelled at the beginning of the pandemic shutdown in March last year.
However, with Board of Control for Cricket in India president Saurav Ganguly having confirmed that efforts are being made to conclude the Indian Premier League in September to prevent an eyewatering financial loss of about $500m, three ODIs against SA would be among the smallest items of collateral damage.
The United Arab Emirates seems the most likely venue for the world’s richest tournament to be completed and if the dire pandemic situation in India does improve in the next couple of months, the T20 World Cup could also be played in the Emirates between mid-October and mid-November.
The Netherlands are due in SA for three more World Cup qualifying matches in early December before India arrive for a full tour comprising three matches in all three formats. But nobody can say with any certainty whether these fixtures will go ahead. They certainly won’t if they are not planned in great detail and, for that, Cricket SA’s operations team — and those from other nations — deserve enormous credit.
Equally deserving of credit and praise, and working equally behind the scenes, is the SA Cricketers Association (Saca), which last week announced, without fuss or fanfare, a series of measures to assist the country’s professional players who are now out of work after completion of the contract lists by the 15 provinces.
Much as the return to a domestic provincial system has been hailed as providing more playing opportunities rather than six franchises, the brutal reality is that six teams have been dissolved and more than 70 players have lost their jobs. Some have retired, others have found coaching work, and still others have found northern hemisphere club sides to play for this winter.
But there are still several dozen twentysomethings who were hoping to make their careers in cricket and who are now facing the harsh, immediate reality of rent and other bills to pay as well as, for some, the bleak truth of a future outside the game if they cannot afford to keep playing and fighting for a contract.
Saca CEO Andrew Breetzke sent a letter to its 300-plus members last week explaining that a players hardship fund had been established to keep a roof over heads and food on the table, as well as a bursary fund for those wishing to complete the academic studies they may have neglected, or to retrain in a vocational career.
An additional R1m of Saca’s precious funds have been set aside for its members’ wellbeing, over and above the career, health and financial advice it has been providing for almost two decades.
There are a lot of honest, decent, kind, caring and hardworking people working in SA cricket, at both professional and amateur level. People who seek nothing for themselves, neither reward nor even thanks.
Not nearly enough has been said and written about them in the last couple of years of administrative rancour and decay. It’s time to start redressing the balance.