Cricket SA clown car takes a sinister turn
THE PEOPLE OUT IN THE MIDDLE OR IN THE CHEAP SEATS JUST NEED TO SHUT UP, GET IN LINE AND HAND OVER THEIR TAXES
On Sunday morning, many of SA’s leading cricket writers were surprised to find locked turnstiles and apologetic shrugs as they tried to go to work in ovals around the country.
A few confused phone calls and texts later, they discovered why: their press accreditation had been revoked by Cricket SA (CSA), apparently with the approval of its CEO, Thabang Moroe.
They were understandably upset. Cricket fans were aghast. The SA National Editors Forum was alerted. Sponsors were tagged in angry tweets.
In the broader scheme of things, it wasn’t exactly a case for Amnesty International. By Sunday afternoon, the revoked accreditation had largely been restored. By Monday, CSA was making noises about wanting to meet aggrieved parties.
SA faces monstrous threats, and you could argue that the temporary inability of journalists to describe the languid flopping about of flannelled somnambulists doesn’t really register on our national to-do list.
And yet, despite the apparently low stakes, it was a moment that resonated far beyond the comfortable middleclass soap opera of sport, reminding us of how fragile our assumed freedoms can be once the powerful and unaccountable start surrendering to their baser, more honest urges.
Because, of course, CSA revoked the press passes of SA’s leading cricket writers for one simple, incredibly sinister reason: it didn’t like what they were writing.
For some time now, CSA has been a honking, squawking cavalcade of clown cars, tossing out balloon animals and vast financial losses. Its ineptitude has often looked comical, albeit in a grim sort of way. Moroe is the man who told EWN in September — two months after SA’s worst World Cup and five days before the start of its worst series in 142 years of Test cricket — that the SA game was in good shape. That guy knows how to time a joke.
Likewise, his insistence two weeks ago that CSA was about to appoint a new director of cricket was like something out of a BBC mockumentary in which a friendly but floundering executive explains that a deadline is in place, but isn’t, except that it is definitely being stuck to, except that it probably isn’t, and in any case, the whole thing might be canned and start from scratch.
In the past week, however,
CSA has let the veneer of faintly funny incompetence slip long enough to reveal a profoundly nasty and eerily familiar brand of contempt.
Consider last week’s interview conducted by Independent Media writer Stuart Hess — one of the journalists stripped of accreditation on Sunday — in which CSA communications head Thamie Mthembu refused to name members of the mysterious “technical team” that will, in the bizarre absence of a panel of selectors, pick the Proteas squad that plays England in just over three weeks. Having first refused to take part in what he called a “naming exercise”, he dismissed the question entirely by saying: “I don’t know any reader who would be interested.”
Of course, Mthembu might have been telling the truth. It is possible that he genuinely doesn’t know any reader who would be interested, perhaps because he doesn’t know any cricket fans, or doesn’t know any readers. After all, neither seems to be a hindrance to working for CSA.
But that sort of approach makes sense of what has happened in the past few days. It explains the self-sabotaging attempt at censorship, and the spin that followed, as Moroe told 702 that he had revoked accreditation after trying, and failing, to organise talks with journalists, a claim rejected with incredulous contempt by most of the writers involved.
It explains tweets by CSA in which it whined about months of “unmediated attacks” by journalists. It was a fascinating little phrase, because it offered a glimpse into a world in which criticism is seen as assault and in which information is either mediated that is buried by lawyers or institutional inertia or unmediated, a dangerous scenario in which people are allowed to have thoughts without board approval.
Most of all, it explains why, in its final tweet, CSA said it was “grateful for the unwavering support of our many stakeholders, and in particular the partners and sponsors and their clientele, who collectively sustain this great sport”.
Not mentioned were players or fans. But who needs them, right? Not Thabang and Thamie by the sound of it. No, the people out in the middle or in the cheap seats just need to shut up, get in line and hand over their taxes. Sorry, I mean their ticket money and SuperSport subscriptions. Sound like anyone else we know?
● Eaton is an Arena Group columnist.