Ken Borland

The attractiveness of top-class sport depends on the quality of the contest and Sri Lanka coach Mickey Arthur says the International Cricket Council will have to consider allowing substitutes in this time of Covid-19.

Sri Lanka have been decimated by a spate of injuries in the first Test against South Africa at Centurion, and if the ailment which saw Dinesh Chandimal limping off the field after the last ball of the third day and then lying down on the boundary edge proves to be something more serious than cramp then they could be down to just six fit players.

Arthur blamed the unprecedented number of injuries on a lack of time to properly condition the players for the rigours of Test cricket, due to the effects of Lockdown and the pressure it then puts on the schedule as administrators try to fit more into less time.

“With Colombo under curfew, the players were not allowed to leave their homes so they had to do a lot of their conditioning there. This South African tour was then on-off, on-off, but eventually we did get into camp together. But then the Lanka Premier League T20 meant we lost them for another month and only got them back the day we left for South Africa.

“So you can throw all of that into the melting pot, it probably all played a role. I hope Dinesh only has cramp or we only have six players to finish the Test, I’m afraid I have a feeling its something more serious but we will see how he pulls up in the morning. But it’s not good for anybody, for our team or the TV audience and I will be chatting about it with the ICC Cricket Committee that I am on,” Arthur said on Monday evening.

“We knew some of our players would be in danger with the short preparation time which is why we brought 21 players over here. It’s difficult with trying to fit in franchise competitions and 2021 is going to be very busy for national teams. Getting the balance right is very important and conditioning and having enough time for preparation is crucial. We didn’t get enough time, but if we had had ample time for preparation and getting the players’ conditioning loaded up, then we wouldn’t be in this dire situation we are in now.

“I see India lost one of their bowlers today in their Test against Australia and I suspect there will be more injuries. The workloads are just too much with players having to deal with Covid and quarantines as well. If the world was normal right now then we would not be in this situation and guys would be conditioned. But I’m certain allowing runners and substitutes will need to be looked at at ICC level,” Arthur added.

Sri Lanka will go into the penultimate day of the Test still 160 runs short of making South Africa bat again with only four or five wickets remaining, but the popular former Proteas, Australia and Pakistan coach was able to quip about his team’s desperate situation.

“It’s lucky we have 21 players here otherwise Grant Flower [batting coach] would be batting at three in the second Test at the Wanderers and I’d be at four! But we will get 400 tomorrow and then [part-time medium-pacer] Dimuth Karunaratne is going to take six wickets and win us the game!”

The International Cricket Council have announced a new system for deciding which teams will go to the World Cup, instituting the ODI Super League, and South Africa have drawn the short straw because they will have to play six of their top-eight colleagues in their bid to qualify for the 2023 event in India.

The ODI Super League begins on Thursday when England take on Ireland in the first of three ODIs, and features 13 teams vying for seven automatic qualification spots, along with hosts India. The bottom five teams will have to go to the World Cup qualifiers with five other Associate nations and battle it out for the last two World Cup places.

Teams will play eight series each, four at home and four away, earning points for each ODI won, with each series offering a set number of points as in the World Test Championship.

The only ‘minnows’ that the Proteas will go head-to-head against are Ireland and the Netherlands; while the only top eight team that South Africa will avoid is New Zealand.

Because of the difficulties of fitting this new pathway to the World Cup into the existing Future Tours Programme (FTP), teams do not play every other country and Pakistan and Bangladesh seem to be most favoured by the draw.

They avoid playing each other, while Pakistan also miss out on taking on India and Sri Lanka but will play Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and the Netherlands.

Bangladesh, apart from not meeting Pakistan, also miss Australia and India, while playing Zimbabwe, Afghanistan and Ireland.

The World Test Championship also does not feature every team playing everybody else and apparently the ICC tried to balance out those discrepancies with the ODI Super League draw.

“The ODI Super League format was devised some time ago, maybe three or four years ago when the rankings would have been different. But what you lose in the ODIs you gain in the Test Championship; it was just difficult fitting all these match-ups into the existing FTP,” a Cricket South Africa official involved in the new qualification system, told The Citizen.

“But the big thing is we now have better relevance and context for every ODI, every game will now have an effect, even those between the lower-ranked teams. This will make 50-over cricket more meaningful.”

Roster

Australia: v England, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan.

Bangladesh: v England, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Ireland.

England: v Australia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Netherlands.

India: v Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan.

New Zealand: v Australia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Ireland, Netherlands.

Pakistan: v Australia, England, New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Netherlands.

South Africa: v Australia, Bangladesh, England, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Netherlands.

Sri Lanka: v Bangladesh, England, India, New Zealand, South Africa, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan.

West Indies: v Australia, Bangladesh, India, New Zealand, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Ireland, Netherlands.

Zimbabwe: v Australia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, West Indies, Afghanistan, Ireland, Netherlands.

Afghanistan: v Australia, Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Zimbabwe, Ireland, Netherlands.

Ireland: v Bangladesh, England, New Zealand, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Netherlands.

Netherlands: v England, New Zealand, Pakistan, South Africa, West Indies, Zimbabwe, Afghanistan, Ireland.

Graeme Smith and Jacques Faul made it abundantly clear this week that after their recent dealings with the BCCI they believe Saurav Ganguly is the right man to become the next International Cricket Council chairman, but their error was in not following the correct channels for such shows of support, which is through the Cricket South Africa Board.

Shashank Manohar’s term as ICC chairman is set to expire in July and the Indian has suggested he will not stand for another stint, meaning world cricket’s top post could be up for grabs at the ICC annual general meeting in a couple of months. Ganguly, the current president of the BCCI and the man who as captain of India began their blossoming as international superpowers, has been identified as a frontrunner to replace his compatriot.

Smith, who captained the Proteas against Ganguly’s Indian team, has reason to back him because the BCCI have been supportive of accommodating South Africa in the post-Covid Future Tours Programme, most notably by agreeing in principle to playing three T20 internationals here at the end of August.

“Strong leadership is going to be the key for cricket going forward and we need people who understand the modern game. I’ve known Saurav for a long time, he is highly-resected and is in the best position to be the new president [chairman] of the ICC, a very important position. It would be great to see him get in and good for the game because he’s got the credentials and the skills to take it forward,” Smith, South Africa’s Director of Cricket, said this week.

But his statements in a remote media conference were followed hours later by this statement from CSA president Chris Nenzani:

“We must respect both the ICC protocol and our own protocol in deciding which candidate to back. There have been no candidates nominated as yet and once such nominations have been made the Board of CSA will take its decision in terms of its own protocol. At the moment we don’t want to anticipate any candidates who may be nominated for this important position to lead the game we all love.”

What that means is that the CSA Board will decide who to back for ICC chairman and Nenzani will be the person casting that vote, not chief executive Faul nor Smith. It was not quite a knee in the groin from Nenzani to Smith, but certainly a reminder that his powers are largely restricted to the field of play and not the politics of the boardroom.

But providing the BCCI continue to support South African cricket, thereby indirectly providing the board members with the gravy-rich meals they so love, there is no reason South Africa and Nenzani would not back Ganguly.

Given the current financial state of Cricket South Africa, they need as much charity as they can get and India have the deepest pockets.

 

South Africa ended last year ranked second in Tests and first in one-day internationals in the International Cricket Council rankings, but they were hardly inspired in 2017.

In fact, the Proteas were more like the bully in the schoolyard, bolstering their self-esteem, and rankings, by picking on easy-beats like Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Zimbabwe at home. But when they were up against the big boys, most notably in the Champions Trophy and in the four-Test series in England, they folded in a heap.

Although they won in New Zealand, the ODIs were tightly-contested and they had good fortune in the Tests, rain washing out the final game when the Black Caps were in an excellent position to level the series.

In terms of individual performances, Hashim Amla and Kagiso Rabada continued to deliver world-class performances on a consistent basis, with the batting of AB de Villiers, Quinton de Kock and Faf du Plessis helping to make the ODI batting unit a dominant force.

Imran Tahir was their best white-ball bowler but it was the Test spinner, Keshav Maharaj, who perhaps made the greatest strides in 2017 and, at the age of 27, he is clearly a future star for the Proteas.

The arrival of Aiden Markram as a technically solid opening partner for Dean Elgar, who was the mainstay of the Test batting with 1128 runs, behind only India’s Cheteshwar Pujara and Aussie maestro Steve Smith in the year’s tally, helped bolster a batting line-up that was exposed in England, especially during De Villiers’ hiatus from Test cricket.

Markram will obviously face far sterner challenges than Bangladesh and Zimbabwe in 2018, but he couldn’t have been expected to do much better than 380 runs in his first four innings, including two centuries.

But that there were more question marks than answers over the Proteas’ performance was borne out by the departure of Russell Domingo as coach before the start of the summer and the arrival of former West Indies head coach and England assistant Ottis Gibson.

After a gentle introduction into the job, his charges feasting on minnows Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, Gibson faces his first real test in the new year as world number ones India arrive.

He will need to keep De Villiers available for Tests just to settle the batting line-up, while the bowlers are certainly there to challenge for the number one ranking, the only problem being keeping them fit and getting the right balance in selection due to the transformation targets.

Most importantly, Gibson will be focused on the creation of a steely edge in the team, and has already created expectation for the 2019 World Cup by declaring that winning that elusive trophy is his goal.

When put under proper pressure by the likes of England, and by Pakistan and India in the Champions Trophy, the old signs of muddled thinking and near-panic were once again there. Gibson will want to make the Proteas a side that plays the big moments well and seizes every opportunity that comes their way.

The South African women’s team provided some of the highlights of the year and captured the imagination of cricket fans back home by narrowly missing out on a place in the Women’s World Cup final, hosts and eventual champions England just sneaking through in a pulsating semi-final.

Players such as Marizanne Kapp, the number one ODI bowler in the world, and Dane van Niekerk became global stars.