INJURY TIME
NOT ONE BUT...
FOR a while there on Thursday it appeared that Cricket South Africa had two chief executive officers running the vacant – due to lockdown regulations – head office in Johannesburg. It did make one insider joke: “Hello, this is Cricket SA, both of our CEOS are unavailable at the moment, if you’d like to leave a message one of them will get back to you shortly.”
COINCIDENCE
AND how about Thabang Moroe, turning up at the office – the vacant one with staff working remotely in accordance with lockdown regulations – and standing at the gate just as a reporter from a nearby radio station happens to be driving past to take a photo. Not a set-up at all, was it? No one called that reporter and said: “would you like to see the now former suspended Cricket SA CEO try and get back to work? Be at Glenhove Street in Melrose Estate at 8.30am.” Doesn’t mind a show does Moroe.
BORED OF (THESE) DIRECTORS
CRICKET SA’S board of directors, and in particular those non-independent directors including president Chris
Nenzani and deputy Beresford Williams, continue to cling to positions stubbornly believing the sport in this country desperately needs them. It patently doesn’t. Zola Thamae from Free State, Angelo Carolissen from Boland and Donovan May from the Eastern Cape also sat on the board that hired Moroe, allowed him to run CSA, gave him extra power to do so and then later suspended him. They then created this even bigger mess in which there was a lack of clarity about the suspension. Those five individuals are still members of the board. And when you have that level of incompetence in charge of a sport you get things like a 30-word press release sent out at 2.18pm last week saying that there will be another press release later about “various matters”. One has to wonder if Nenzani, Williams, Thamae, May and Carolissen can run a bath, because they certainly can’t run cricket.
A THUG
WHO needs friends when your own family will turn on you? Lamine Diack, the former president of the International Amateur Athletics Federation, was in court this week to answer charges that the governing body of track and field became a nest of corruption and doping coverups under his leadership. Diack and one of his sons, Papa Massata Diack, are on trial on charges of corruption, money laundering and breach of trust. The son is being tried in his absence, having fled in 2015 to Senegal, where he lives. They are accused of having conspired together in a scheme that allegedly squeezed millions of dollars in hush-money from athletes who paid to avoid doping sanctions and keep competing. Pressed by the chief judge about his son’s role, Diack at first gave an inaudible response before saying: “He conducted himself like a thug.”
HAPPY
“HAPPY...HAPPY… I’m happy. Three ‘happies’. Try,” declared Paul Williams as the Chiefs scored a late try in the opening Super Rugby Aotearoa match in Dunedin yesterday. Never mind making the point clear to Aaron Smith, the Highlanders’ scrum-half about his decision, we were all just happy to have live rugby back on our TVS again. It was a genuine tribute to the honesty and clarity with which the New Zealand government has led that nation and the citizens of the country who largely showed faith in that leadership. The next nine weeks will be fun and we can all be happy about that.