Cricket SA on a sticky wicket

THERE are 21 days to go to the first Test between South Africa and England at SuperSport Park.

That countdown should fill you with a great deal of trepidation if you are a cricket fan.

With only three weeks to go to that series’ defining encounter, the South African national men’s team is completely rudderless as Cricket South Africa (CSA) have failed thus far to react swiftly after the firing of Ottis Gibson in August, to plug that gap competently and also restructure their operations accordingly.

We get it. It’s difficult sometimes to reorientate an organisation to follow a new vision.

But as the Boxing Day Test looms, and with that dreaded 21-days-to-go countdown towering oppressively over everything that CSA does, these are the facts: the administrative body has yet to appoint a director of cricket, who must still find a coach – Enoch Nkwe is currently the interim coach and there is serious doubt that he will continue in that role for the upcoming tour – and who must still appoint a convenor of selectors, who must, with the yet-to-be announced director, find a bunch of amiable individuals to form a panel of selectors to select a squad.

If there is one positive in all of this, it’s that the Proteas pretty much pick themselves and Faf du Plessis will be captain.

This past week’s odious censorship of cricket reporters, however, has sidelined this most pressing of issues. Its sensationalist nature has shifted focus onto the administrators and journalists – two factions that should never be the news.

Instead of concentrating on their structures and the English series, CSA finds itself tending to a PR disaster, while the greater media fraternity focuses its attention on those journalists scorned.

In all of this, we must not forget that on December 26 a Test match starts, a game must be played and be won, and at the moment there is no plan to ensure victory.