Futures on the line and CSA needs to get a move on
Proteas coach Ottis Gibson and his captain Faf du Plessis have presided over SA’s worst Cricket World Cup campaign since the team’s first sojourn in 1992. Heads are likely to roll after this abomination
● Futures are on the line in SA cricket in the wake of a dismal World Cup campaign, but the immediate future is murky.
What SA’s team will look like by the middle of September, when they go to India for three T20s and as many Tests, is unclear.
For a start, who would want to coach them now? They are damaged goods.
Ottis Gibson is a respected and admired bowling coach, and has even gone where no SA coach has by winning a World T20.
But, on this evidence, he isn’t the coach to take the team forward. Who that might be is less pertinent than who would want to put themselves through what it takes to hold SA’s reins.
Paddy Upton has made it clear that plenty would have to change about the structures around the team before he would consider taking the role. He will not be alone.
It’s difficult to imagine straight arrows like Mark Boucher and Ashwell Prince putting up with what passes for cricket administration in SA, even less a respected foreign coach.
The best Cricket SA (CSA) can hope for is that a coach who has a point to prove will take on the challenge; someone in the Dav Whatmore mould. It will be a gamble, but beggars can’t be choosers.
SA’s post-World Cup rebuild won’t end there. Besides a new coach — and support staff — they will need new senior batters, new fast bowlers, new spinners, and, perhaps, a new captain.
Where will they get them considering there is no trust in the domestic system to deliver the goods?
It wasn’t an answer, but reassurance that all is not lost came at the Riverside on Friday after Kusal Mendis cracked Andile Phehlukwayo square of the wicket.
The ball, a fluorescent dot in the neon sunshine and uncluttered air of England’s north, sped across the sprawl of greensward.
After the ball, as if it had stolen something from him, sped Rassie van der Dussen, an unapologetically athletic figure refusing to concede defeat.
Here comes the boundary.
Here comes the ball.
And here comes Van der Dussen, a tumbling jumble of arms and legs and an eyeblink too late.
Although in vain, and in a match that couldn’t rescue SA’s woeful campaign, the feat was impressive.
After everything — the shattering injuries, the shocking batting, the cracks in the confidence — someone still cared enough to chase a certain four all the way to the boundary.
As he ran, Van der Dussen looked, in the best possible way, like a schoolboy: still thrilled that his body can do this, still in love with the game, still believing. It’s at times like these that we seek out moments like this.
“Hope’s a very dangerous thing for me,” Faf du Plessis said before SA’s match against Afghanistan.
But what if hope is all you have left? The sight of Van der Dussen hurrying in hot pursuit was that hope, and should be kept dear.
Thing is, Van der Dussen is an outlier who has made the leap to international level despite, not because of, franchise cricket. Just like Anrich Nortjé, who might have made a significant difference to SA’s World Cup had he not broken a thumb.
SA will depend on players like them — and on finding others — to clear some of the murk from their future.
“Guys who will carry on have to pick up some of the pieces that have fallen in this World Cup,” JP Duminy said on Thursday.
“But that is what makes a strong SA team. We have always been resilient, we have always had opportunities to come back. I have no doubt this team will come back stronger.”
How?
“I wish I could give you an answer. I’m not sure. We heard reports that heads will roll.
“The important thing for us is to take responsibility and stand up and be man enough to know that we have come up short.
“In terms of the decisions that CSA make, that’s out of my hands.
“But going on previous World Cups, there will probably be some shifting. That’s the reality that we all understand.”
Do CSA understand that reality? On Monday, the day after SA’s first-round exit was confirmed, the suits issued a release.
It surely offered leadership for the coming months, a plan to follow. Surely not. Here’s the headline: “CSA invites players to register interest for MSL 2.0.”
And we wonder why things are a mess.
The best that Cricket SA can hope for is that a coach who has a point to prove will take on the challenge