CSA will have to bat clever in post-Lorgat era

It is understood that Haroon Lorgat’s sacking as chief executive of Cricket South Africa (CSA) relates directly to his running of the T20 Global League, making it a classic Frankenstein tale of a monster running amok and destroying its creator.

While Lorgat deserves credit for getting the T20 Global League off the ground, it became his hobby horse, seemingly an obsession, and he sidelined many people in CSA in formulating the plans for the tournament. Most tellingly, it seems the former ICC chief executive over-estimated just how attractive the tournament would be to investors.

Because of this, the actual ownership of the franchises is murky and the tournament, just five weeks from starting, currently has neither a broadcast partner nor a title sponsor.

It seems Lorgat gambled on not automatically giving SuperSport the broadcast rights.

They almost see themselves as the de facto owners of all sport in South Africa, so it was a brave move to initially turn down their bid for the rights, in the belief that overseas buyers, especially from India, would be willing to pay more.

Alas, this has turned out to be Lorgat’s ultimate folly.

With no Indian players involved in the tournament and plenty of other cricket on the go at the same time – most notably the Ashes and India hosting a threematch T20 series against New Zealand – the T20 Global League has not attracted the interest that was hoped for.

Now CSA have to repair their relationship with SuperSport, who still figure as probably their most important commercial partner, as well as trying to implement drastic budget cuts for the T20 Global League.

While Lorgat has departed under a cloud – for CSA to fire their CEO so close to the major tournament he was intimately involved with has to point to a major indiscretion – he will also be remembered as the chief executive who turned their reputation around.

Following the dark days of the Gerald Majola bonus scandal, Lorgat restored the image of the organisation and he was also well-liked by the players, because he, like Majola, put the interests of the national team first. Apart from the World Cup semifinal fiasco, the honesty with which he approached the thorny issue of transformation and quotas was also appreciated by the players.

The greater financial prudency Lorgat spearheaded among the domestic franchises has also helped to turn around the federation’s finances.

The CSA board harbours some interesting characters, some of whom were complicit in the Majola affair but have remained intact, but it is a mark of how much better the corporate governance is that the decision to dismiss Lorgat was made.

While the former CEO was able to lie and manipulate the board to suit his agendas, Lorgat is gone at the first sign of impropriety.

It was the arrival of Lalit Modi’s Indian Premier League on these shores that started all the trouble for Majola and CSA, and there are many parallels between that tournament and the T20 Global League in terms of how local stakeholders feel they are being exploited, sidelined and even misled in some cases.

CSA are now under immense pressure to ensure that the many potential benefits of the league for the local game do actually materialise.