Cobras in chaos as coach row heads to CCMA

players and the head coach”.

“It involves a fundamental loss of confidence by the players in the coach’s ability to lead the coaching of the team arising from his inability to create an effective team culture‚ poor communication and man management skills‚ lack of tactical and technical knowledge and disorganisation in running proper practise and training sessions‚” the release said.

Central to the drama is a report by former South African team director Paddy Upton‚ who was appointed as a mediator by an independent panel formed by the Western Cape Cricket (WCC) board to investigate the players’ claims.

“Paddy’s report is an internal document and hasn’t been made available to the media at this stage‚” Saca CE Tony Irish said.

“I can, however, confirm that after conducting a number of interviews and looking at all the relevant documents, he outlined three possible scenarios and the benefits and risks relating to each of those.

“The first was to continue with the coach with no changes. The second was to continue with the coach with an additional support structure around him‚ and the third was for him to stand down as head coach and be redeployed elsewhere in Western Province cricket.

“Given the risks and upsides attaching to each scenario‚ and the extent of the breakdown in the relationship‚ Paddy clearly recommended that the parties should agree to the third scenario.”

But, after studying Upton’s report‚ WCC decided to retain Adams, who has been offered a new two-year contract which reportedly remains unsigned.

WCC said last Tuesday the board had found “material deficiencies in Upton’s report as he did not fully discharge the mandate given to him to speak to all the contracted players”.

Irish took issue with that view: “As a mediator, his role was to understand the grievance and assist in resolving it.

“He didn’t need to interview every single player to do this and he was specifically mandated to use whatever approach he considered appropriate. His report demonstrates a very thorough understanding of the grievance and his recommendation of how it should be resolved.”

The Saca release quoted Irish as saying: “The players have exhausted the internal cricket process for dealing with their grievance and now have no option but to refer this to the CCMA.” The fact that‚ under Adams‚ the Cobras have won or shared four trophies in five years across all formats would seem to be a mitigating factor. But not in the ranks of the disgruntled.

Despite all these issues, Adams and his players will be at Wanderers next Wednesday to play the Lions in their opening first-class match of the season.

The dressing room might be quieter than usual as the team contemplates the fact that a hearing will be held within 30 days of the CCMA serving papers on WCC.

Whatever the CCMA says will not be binding on any party.

But, in the real world‚ when workers aren’t satisfied with CCMA rulings, they go on strike. TMG Digital