Managers bowled out
Can the players save Cricket SA?
While 32 of SA’s top cricketers spent the week in the Kruger National Park on a “culture camp”, the sport’s governing body fell apart. The administrative and executive arms of Cricket SA (CSA) have two weeks to find a semblance of professional healing before the September 5 annual meeting where a new board will be constituted and a new president elected.
During the brief interregnum, the players have a chance to find their voice and be the agents of a change that the board and executive have dismally failed to be.
Players are the most important stakeholders in any sport. Without them there would be no cricket. What happened on Monday, a day after the camp was announced, must have been a bitter pill for dedicated cricketers to swallow, although not unexpected. CSA’s blundering has become routine and it has been on its knees for some time now.
This is how the latest shenanigans played out: on Monday, Chris Nenzani’s resignation as CSA’s longtime president was confirmed. Acting CEO Jacques Faul also threw in the towel on what was CSA’s messiest day in recent history. On Friday, an independent director, Steve Cornelius, resigned, leaving Marius Schoeman as the only independent board director from a group consisting of Dawn Mokhobo, Shirley Zinn and Iqbal Khan.
Monday’s departure of the two top men was the culmination of just over a year’s worth of mayhem in CSA, starting with the shambolic 2019 Cricket World Cup campaign in England.
In the tournament, the Proteas lost five of their first seven games, failing to qualify for the play-offs even before the tournament’s midpoint.
An inevitable fallout after the tournament claimed coach Ottis Gibson’s head and led to a hunt for a director of cricket. The creation of such a post had been recommended after the failed 2015 Cricket World Cup, but CSA did nothing.
Last year, CSA’s then CEO, Thabang Moroe, was tasked with finding a director of cricket by the end of October, a deadline that wasn’t met (note the trend). When the prospective candidates were eventually lined up, Graeme Smith was the favourite, but he withdrew his candidacy in a Twitter post citing the organisation’s unhealthy environment.
He wasn’t wrong.
Banned the journalists
At the time CSA was fighting on several fronts. It was in a dispute with the South African Cricketers’ Association over the restructuring of the domestic game; it lost an arbitration battle after attempting to place the Western Province Cricket Association in administration; and four directors resigned and three officials were suspended in connection with money from the Mzansi Super League that was not paid. CSA also withdrew the accreditation of five regular cricket correspondents, a decision made even more embarrassing when it retreated from this action on the same day.
All of this contributed to Moroe’s demise. He was suspended on December 5, coupled with disciplinary proceedings that still show no sign of a conclusion after many deadlines were missed. With Faul’s resignation this week, chief commercial officer Kugandrie Govender stepped in until the end of September. Beresford Williams will act as president until the annual meeting on September 5.
Amid this chaos, the Proteas need to find a Test captain and CSA remains paralysed. Not even the scandal of disgraced former CEO Gerald Majola eight years ago brought the organisation this low.
CSA's notorious lethargy led to Moroe's suspension letter being issued only in January. A team of auditors was appointed in February, started work only in March, and by June still had produced no report. Moroe staged a return to work on June 11, forcing the board of CSA to meet and extend his suspension. The forensic investigation’s terms of reference were changed to focus on Moroe and the executive team.
The audit report, which Nenzani said should have been available for public consumption by the end of June, has still not been published.
Part of the rot
Nenzani’s exit means the buck will be passed to the next president, a pretty smart move from his side because he will have escaped the stench clinging to his position.
Any president appointed by the current board will appear to be tainted, part and parcel of the rot that came before.
With the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee crippled by its own leadership squabble and the sports ministry apparently incapable of arriving at any sort of decision, there is no advisory board that can help CSA pull itself together to provide leadership and cohesion.
SA’s cricket problems also stretch to an affiliate level. The Western Province Cricket Association, having successfully challenged CSA’s attempted interference in the union, then lost its CEO, Tennyson Botes, the president, Nick Kock, and all their independent board members in July resignations — decisions said to have been taken over a construction project taking place at Newlands.
At the Easterns Cricket Union, CEO Mpho Seopa was suspended, and a long-standing report on the North West Cricket Union has not been fully dealt with by CSA.
The presidents of dysfunctional affiliates make up the 14-person council from which the seven members of the CSA board, including the president and vicepresident, are picked. Magic can’t be created from swill.
This malaise has a long history but the past year alone has shown CSA’s board in all its ingloriousness. The organisation still needs to conjure up leaders from its ranks to take CSA forward, but inevitably some of these leaders would have been wilful participants in malfeasance.
For the players — the best of the best — having to hedge their bets on administrators who have fallen so abominably short must be hard to take. But players also need to step up and help bring about the change they want in the game.
The culture camp ended yesterday, and no-one should forget that it is the players who hold all the aces. Administrators might make the decisions, but only players keep the financial wheels turning.
One vital matter they will have to deal with decisively is the Black Lives Matter movement. All players need to drive the rapid and decisive ending of discrimination suffered by black players.
Was this handled well by Smith? Well, the fact that he has wholeheartedly supported the movement is important. His initial claims that he was unaware of issues affecting black players while he was captain was concerning, however. This came to the fore when Temba Bavuma was injured and then dropped during last season’s Test series against England. There followed mixed messages from management.
Awareness can be cultivated, particularly for the benefit of the team’s future, and especially if the education is team-driven across all provinces and franchises. This could be one way in which the players dictate to the board how the game should be run.
Sociological matters
While the appointment of a permanent CEO at CSA is out of the players’ hands, they should have a say in who runs the game. Of course players should not dictate to the board, but there is a need to include them while streamlining the effective functioning of an executive.
The importance of who is appointed as CEO when Moroe’s disciplinary proceedings are finally concluded cannot be overstated. That CEO will also need a grasp of sociological matters unique to South African sport.
Moroe’s tenure has set back the claims of competent black CEOs, not just in sport but in corporate circles, where black managers are frequently viewed with suspicion regardless of their qualifications and abilities.
CSA has not had a full-time white CEO either — Faul has merely acted twice in this position. The tricky terrain of transformation is a minefield.
An example was Smith’s appointment of long-time teammate Mark Boucher as team director, chosen ahead of Enoch Nkwe, who had coached for longer and is highly qualified despite lacking Boucher’s Test match experience.
Even the choice of Smith as a candidate for director of cricket — ahead of individuals with better coaching and management credentials but less international commercial appeal — remains polarising, a subject of intense debate about white privilege.
As for Faul, he’s led the Titans astutely. However, in 2016, he once missed an opportunity to internally promote Mandla Mashimbyi, who’d been coach Rob Walters’s assistant, and instead chose Boucher, who didn’t have coaching experience. This misstep was belatedly corrected when Mashimbyi replaced Boucher last year, but the faux pas followed Faul around despite the team’s success under Boucher.
Whether the players have a say in Moroe’s replacement — which they should, particularly since the board clearly has not properly applied its mind — the new incumbent of this beleaguered position will need a thorough knowledge of sport and business, and, crucially, be removed from the factional politics that have blighted CSA for so long.
A trimmed-down board, with better player representation, is necessary to ensure the CEO has all the checks and balances in place so that the players can focus on their core business: playing.
How players navigate the meritocracy debate, one that has also affected the team in the various formats over the years, will have a big impact in terms of how they relate to each other. They also need to win on the field before making demands on the executive.
The year 2019 was South African cricket’s most difficult one on the field. In losing 2-0 to Sri Lanka in February last year, the national team conceded its first home series to an Asian team.
The 3-1 defeat at home in a Test series against England brought further humiliation.
No South African batsman scored a hundred in that series, highlighting the batting inadequacies that were glossed over during Gibson’s reign when the coach concentrated on SA’s fast bowling.
Covid-19 prevented a refreshment and renewal period in which a new Test captain could have been appointed, a period during which players might have been able to dictate their terms on the field.
The players remain CSA’s golden goose. Without them, there is no broadcasting money and no cricket.
A sickly board doesn’t always have an impact on performances on the field.
Between 2011 and 2012, the Proteas played some excellent cricket under Smith, even while the Majola scandal bubbled just below the surface in the organisation.
Players have shown in the past that they can be immune to boardroom politics, but they can also be part of the solution to a massive problem. The current men’s group is a young one that can paint the canvas its own way. With the board failing to provide leadership, the players need to flex their muscles and start their run-up.
The players have time to find their voice and be the agents of change that the board and executive have dismally failed to be