Zondi bid rejected
Former national selection chief accuses Moroe and Madiseng of ‘sabotage’
LINDA Zondi has accused former Cricket South Africa chief executive Thabang Moroe and Gauteng Cricket president Jack Madiseng of “clear sabotage” which has now negatively impacted on his chances of being reinstalled as national convenor of selectors.
Zondi is one of the most experienced selectors in the country, having come through the ranks as a talent scout at KwaZulu-Natal and South Africa Under-19 before serving two years on the national selection panel from 2013-2015 prior to graduating to the convener’s role from 2015-2019.
The 43-year-old was then appointed as the “independent selector” until the end of last season.
Zondi has, however, been informed via an email, which Independent Media has seen, from Cricket SA’s Director of Cricket Graeme Smith that he’s not been shortlisted for the new full-time role, which was re-advertised in April 2020 after the initial candidates interviewed in November 2019 “did not produce a sufficient pool of the calibre of personnel CSA was hoping to recruit”.
“Unfortu-nately, your scoring was not part of the candidates that scored the highest in the previous interviews and therefore we did not invite you to interview in this round,” Smith’s email read.
Zondi acknowledges his previous November interview was not up to scratch, and holds no grudges against Smith, but believes he was not treated in a fair and just manner. The November interview panel consisted of Moroe, Madiseng, current acting CSA president Beresford Williams, Tebogo Siko, Shirley Zinn and Dawn Mokhobo.
“What happened in November was that they sent me a Whatsapp message to attend an interview. From thereon they said I have an interview at Kingsmead. I remember it was the first day of the Mzansi Super League at Kingsmead. When I arrived at Kingsmead at 11am for my 2pm interview, they had not arranged a room for me to do the interview,” Zondo told Independent Media.
“I spoke to the PA, who said Cricket SA had not informed them that I will be having a visual interview. I had to arrange my own interview on the day.
“They asked the first question which was ‘Do you understand the role of this position?’ I responded and explained. The second question related to Dale Steyn’s inclusion in the World Cup squad, which I explained was related to Anrich Nortje. While I was explaining this to them, I saw Thabang and Jack were doing the visual gestures of ‘cut, cut, we don’t need him’.
“When I saw that I went flat and I don’t even remember the third and fourth questions. I confronted Thabang and asked what they were looking for. He gave me a very autocratic response that they are looking for someone that’s going to change Cricket SA.”