Pybus doesn’t mince words
Ken Borland
Richard Pybus has been one of the real legends of domestic coaching in South Africa, having won nine trophies with the Titans and Cape Cobras, but he began his career guiding lowly Border into a position where they were competitive against the big guns of local cricket.
So when the former Pakistani and West Indies coach says plans to change the domestic structure, increasing the top level to 12 teams, are not addressing the true problems in South African cricket then his views should be considered seriously.
“It’s a terrible idea,” Pybus said of the plan to do away with the six franchises at the top table of domestic cricket. “They are trying to fix the wrong thing. The issue is the administration of the game and not franchise cricket. Why are Cricket South Africa in their current financial position? They should review that. Why pull apart a highly effective system, the same sort of model that has given Australia consistent success?
“The issue is not our model but getting our administration right. Our problems are not about the franchise game, that’s giving us what is needed, which is incredible competition, the best 66 players in the country going up against each other. The franchise system was directly responsible and supported our national team getting to number one. We want strength versus excellence, not to dilute that,” Pybus told The Citizen from his house in Hermanus.
The 55-year-old Pybus said the domestic system needed to reflect the differences between the high-performance needs of the Proteas pipeline and those of growing the game.
“Our cricket has lots of layers and it needs to be clearer whether those layers serve the recreational game or the Proteas, with a lot of layers not really serving either of them. A lot of our cricket should not be professional and any changes should be about strengthening that level. We have a brilliant, multi-cultural game and it also needs to be inclusive.
“The development programme does have some issues, there are not enough players coming from black communities, but that has nothing to do with franchise cricket. There are geographical and historical reasons for those issues.
“Coaching is also a real problem and it will take a generation to transform that because we have pushed all our senior coaches out, that intellectual capital is gone,” Pybus said.