Elgar and Cricket SA show how staunch consolidation pays off until rivals implode
Dean Elgar’s sixth Test century symbolised the progress South African cricket has been making on and off the field since sliding down the rankings. Not long ago, SA held a position of global significance while ranked No 1 in the world — and the administration was just a step behind the game’s superpowers.
Elgar is a strong personality and unafraid to argue and scrap if that is what is required. He stands up for himself and fights his corner but has long since figured out that arguing is a wasteful distraction — better just to get on with the job of batting and collecting runs.
Sri Lanka arrived on these shores full of hope and belief following their thrashing of Australia on home soil and their more than adequate beating of Zimbabwe, during which they coped easily with African conditions. It convinced them they could become the first team from the subcontinent to win a series in SA in 17 attempts but it is looking like a forlorn dream now.
Their seam bowlers simply do not have the nous to bowl the right length consistently; the batsmen, who were unable to cope in Port Elizabeth last week, are unlikely to do much better in Cape Town.
A series win already beckons for the Proteas as they continue, like Elgar, to build slowly on a solid foundation.
Further afield there were remarkable developments in India, where the country’s Supreme Court finally came good on its promise to enforce governance regulations on the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI).
Having been entrusted by the government to review the administrative and financial structure of the game at provincial and national level, the court, headed by Justice RM Lodha, issued restructuring “recommendations” aimed at eradicating cronyism, conflicts of interest and financial irregularity.
Some of the more than 20 state associations complied, including the influential Cricket Association of Bengal with its headquarters at Eden Gardens in Kolkata. But the majority did not, while the national governing body paid no more than lip service to the report.
After six months Lodha confirmed that the “recommendations” were, in fact, decrees of the court and could not be ignored. When that failed, he removed the powerful (and hitherto apparently invincible) Anurag Thakur as president of the BCCI and Ajay Shirke as secretary.
It may seem fitting that the BCCI is now being manoeuvred with a big stick, having used it ruthlessly itself — with convenient allies in the England and Wales Cricket Board and Cricket Australia — on the rest of the Test-playing nations. But a BCCI in disarray is almost certainly bad news for everyone else.
Former BCCI president N Srinivasan took charge of the International Cricket Council and engineered the “big three” takeover of the global game, which concentrated a disproportionate amount of the game’s global revenue towards the big three and also ruthlessly allocated long and lucrative Test and one-day series between them, leaving the “small seven” to fight over the scraps.
It is one of the reasons why Sri Lanka are, bizarrely, scheduled to tour SA again next summer. India and Australia are also due to tour here next year following the visit of Bangladesh but there remains a great deal of discussion to be completed. Whereas the backto-back Sri Lankan tours were negotiated in desperation, both boards are now reconsidering. The fixtures and dates for the India tour, meanwhile, are likely to take even longer than usual to finalise now there are no senior officials in place to sign them off.
Cricket SA’s decision to adopt a position of quiet diplomacy and dignified but unspecified disappointment at the cricketing coup d’etat by the big three has been slowly but surely paying dividends over the past 12 months and, whereas it was clearly and deliberately marginalised by the big three, its influence at the VIP table is increasing with every International Cricket Council executive meeting — the last of which was held in Cape Town.