CSA: ‘NEVER A BIGGER MESS’
MISCOMMUNICATION
In the wake of Cricket SA’S Head of Media and Communications, Thamie Mthembu’s interview with
The Star last week, reaction has rolled in thick and fast. And most of it is not good. “Never seen a bigger mess in SA cricket than right now,” Allan Donald tweeted. “#Rudderless” said Jacques Rudolph also on twitter. “It’s just incredible,” remarked Paul Harris. “This is a very sad state of affairs,” tweeted Pat Symcox. That organisation’s image needs fixing, and Injury
Times wonders if Mthembu is the right person to fix them.
NOTHING TO SEE HERE
It’s worth pointing out that there are 26 days to go to the first Test between South Africa and England at Supersport Park. It’ll be a big occasion to kick off a very big series for both teams. And while England look lost at the moment on the playing field in New Zealand, even their struggles don’t seem as big as the Proteas’. Consider for a moment; there is no selection convener, there is no selection panel, no Director of Cricket, the head coach/team director is there in an interim capacity and according to Mthembu, no-one is interested in knowing who picks the Proteas team. There’s massive debt within CSA as well; they lost a court case this past week against one of their provincial affiliates – which further increased the debt, because CSA were ordered to pay all the costs. They are still stuck in a court case against their own players – which has now been dragging on for six months and three senior administrators remain suspended as disciplinary hearings took place last week. Otherwise everything’s okay.
PUT SOME RESPEK ON MY NAME
“As soon as I don’t perform for two or three games, then Chris Gayle is the burden for the team ... Chris Gayle is always a burden if I don’t score runs, two, three, four times. Chris Gayle never get no respek. Once Chris Gayle fails, it’s the end of his career, he is no good, he is the worst player and all these other things.” Man, if only Chris Gayle could have batted in the Mzansi Super League as well he talked about himself.
CAPTAIN FOLAU?
Israel Folau increased his claims for wrongful dismissal by Rugby Australia from the A$10-million (about R99m) to A$14-million (about R138.6m) this past week, saying he was adding in the addition claim because of likely losses in income which would have arisen because he was in line to captain the Wallabies. As Peter Fitzsimons of the Sydney Morning Herald pointed out it’s an absurd claim from the former Wallaby and Waratahs fullback. There was absolutely no sign in the last year of Folau’s career that he was near to being made Australia’s rugby captain. “From a distance, I just thought, ‘What? Captain?’… but Michael Cheika, who was the Wallabies coach of course, he moved through seven vice captains,” said Fitzsimons in an interview with New Zealand television. “Now, if Michael Cheika had seven vice captains and Israel Folau wasn’t one of them, I think by definition he was a very unlikely man to be captain.”
CHIPPENDALE MANAGER
We’re happy for our friends who are Arsenal fans, mainly because we can’t stand anymore moaning from them. From ‘Wengerout’ less than two years later they were crying ‘Emeryout’ and now he is out and in comes Freddie Ljunberg to manage the football team on an interim basis. While Ljunberg was part of some extraordinary success on the field for the Gunners, he is almost as famous for his ads modelling Calvin Klein briefs in the early 2000s. One billboard of Ljungberg in nothing but his undies donned 50 storeys of a Manhattan skyscraper at one point. As a close confidante of Injury Times said this week: “I see Arsenal now has a Chippendale as their manager.”