Straightforward facts, fiction and a flailing Cricket SA
It has been over a month since Cricket SA president Chris Nenzani promised the release of the forensic audit examining the finances and governance of the organisation and, in particular, suspended CEO Thabang Moroe.
Inquiries are met with the same refrain: “Legal issues.” Yet we also know there was a proposal, in writing, for the audit’s terms of reference to be retroactively changed to exclude the board members. Why would they want to do that?
On at least half a dozen occasions I have received reliable word, privately, that the majority of board members put the game’s dismal reputation down to “negative journalists”.
This was confirmed publicly last week when one board member, Northerns president Tebogo Siko, included this paragraph in a letter to his colleagues: “I often hear people say once there’s a start to cricket, then the journalists will forget and focus on the game. That statement holds no water. When international cricket is in full swing again, how much reputational damage would this organisation have suffered?”
The answer is A LOT. Like my colleagues, I have no intention of taking my eye off the administration ball once the red and white ones return. My livelihood depends on a healthy game, as do many other careers.
But let’s take a break from that this week and focus on different truths.
Coming from a journalist, this is a dangerous thing to say, but so be it. Sometimes, just occasionally, the facts really do get in the way of a good story. Or at least, the story.
Among the many recent claims of racial bias and prejudice suffered by black players at provincial and even national level was the one by former Lions leg spinner Eddie Leie that he was paid just R9,000 for a Proteas tour to India at the end of 2015 while one of his white colleagues received as much as R600,000. It demanded examination.
The facts are straightforward and were easily checked. The full tour comprised of four Tests, five ODIs and two T20Is. Leie was part of the T20 squad and did not play because Imran Tahir and JP Duminy did the spin bowling. Back then a T20I match fee was R9,000 and the policy was to split one fee between the 12th and 13th men. So Leie received R9,000 — as did Quinton de Kock, who also played in neither game.
Match fees were higher for the ODIs and much more for the Test matches, but even those who played in every game (AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla and so on) received a total of R440,000, not the R600,000 claimed by Leie. Every player also received a small commercial rights fee, as they do after every tour.
The facts aren’t the story, in my opinion. Perhaps the real question is why Leie has spent the last four or five years believing he had been so horribly and unfairly treated. Was there no mechanism within the Cricket SA system through which he could tackle his grievances?
And if not, then perhaps that could explain many of the other perceived injustices. Many players who are now complaining about injustices have spoken about not being able to “speak up” for fear that they would be labelled a “trouble maker”.
As one former administrator told me recently: “Perhaps we took too much for granted and assumed the players understood everything.”
He suggested the establishment of an independent hotline for players to call with their queries, free from the threat of repercussions. But that, of course, would require of Cricket SA’s rarest and most rapidly dwindling commodity. Money.
Makhaya Ntini recently bemoaned that he was given “no recognition” for his stellar career and extraordinary achievements, yet the largest live audience ever to attend a cricket match was gathered in his honour.
Almost 50,000 packed the Moses Mabhida Stadium on January 9 2011 for a T20I against India, and though Ntini didn’t benefit financially, probably because the Guptas failed to pay for the event as agreed, Cricket SA did grant the great fast bowler, as a gesture of gratitude and respect, an additional year’s salary after his contract was not renewed,
Once again, the facts may be getting in the way of the story. Leie is right — R9,000 in match fees doesn’t seem much for selection to a national squad, but there was nothing “personal” about his remuneration.
And if Ntini feels that more could have been done for him, then those emotions are legitimate. After all, there was Shaun Pollock’s five-match “Farewell Tour” against the West Indies (though he begged Cricket SA’s marketing department not to make a fuss).
Graeme Smith retired in the middle of a Test and “disappeared” immediately
— much depends on luck with farewells.
Like cricket statistics, the “facts” may or may not be relevant to the conversations we need to have. But they do need to be a part of them.