Ken Borland

Cricket South Africa’s long-awaited AGM will take place on Saturday from 10am and the Independent Nominations Panel will be responsible for appointing the eight independent directors to serve on the new 15-person Board, while the Members Council will elect five of their representatives to become non-independent directors.

Dr Stavros Nicolaou, the chaiman of the Interim Board, revealed on Friday at the handover of their report to sports minister Nathi Mthethwa that the nominations panel was headed by the chairman of the Institute of Directors Muhammad Seedat, and the six members included such well-known cricket figures as former first-class cricketer and match referee, attorney Enver Mall; former ICC and CSA president Ray Mali; and former Proteas pace bowler David Terbrugge.

Nicolaou stressed that the Interim Board had no input into the eight nominations that the panel will present on Saturday, except for establishing the parameters around which the members of the Independent Nominations Panel were appointed.

The tenure of the Interim Board will come to an end at the AGM.

“It’s been six months of intense work trying to unscramble many years of problems. Our report contains our learnings and recommendations for the future, and is a template for the next board, hopefully a springboard to more effective executive management. It’s a foundation for the future and that’s most important.

“Our mandate was not just about cricket, it was much bigger than that as Minister Mthethwa highlighted when he first met with us at the end of October. Sport cuts cross every facet of our lives and if cricket fails then it has a much wider impact than just for sport,” Nicolaou said.

Rihan Richards, the acting president of the Members Council that was mostly at loggerheads with the Interim Board and the Minister, thanked both Mthethwa and Nicolaou “for what you have done for cricket”.

“We are entering into a new era for cricket, this will change the face of cricket completely. This is just a report until it is implemented and now we have to take it forward. I don’t anticipate any problems with that at the AGM,” Richards said.

The maudlin cries complaining that all our best talent goes overseas is something we are quite used to hearing in cricket and rugby and the issue has come to the fore again with Devon Conway’s spectacular debut for New Zealand’s impressive Black Caps cricket team and Springbok director of rugby Rassie Erasmus announcing a squad of which nearly 50% were based overseas.

Top sportspeople taking their skills elsewhere is one of the biggest challenges facing our administrators, but it is also a problem that the country faces as a whole in a wide range of fields. On the sporting side, there is not much cash-strapped Cricket South Africa nor SA Rugby can do about the major socio-economic issues that are driving emigration.

Erasmus has bemoaned the financial realities that mean it is just about impossible for SA Rugby to stop their leading players from taking lucrative contracts overseas; the Rand simply cannot compete. And appealing to professional sportspeople to consider the good of the game back home is a bit like pleading with a kid to eat their broccoli because it’s good for them.

But by choosing a Springbok squad to play the British and Irish Lions in which 22 of the 46 members are based overseas, Erasmus is in a way encouraging what he was complaining about. Local players see that squad packed with emigrants and must be thinking that heading off to Europe or Japan will be a fruitful endeavour.

And not just in terms of their wallets. This latest Springbok squad selection has almost sent a message that you are more likely to be picked if you are based overseas.

There are so many talents blossoming in South African domestic rugby at the moment – the likes of Ruan Nortje, Lizo Gqoboka, JD Schickerling and even the reinvented Cornal Hendricks – but it seems every time there was a 50/50 call, the selection went the way of the guy based overseas.

Erasmus has expressed his disappointment that there are so many of our players offshore, but favouring the exiles when it comes to selection is not going to help restrict the numbers departing.

The tacit statement behind the selection is that the standard of overseas rugby – even in Japan – is better than that of the South African domestic game, which is not a great admission for the director of rugby to make.

A 50% overseas Springbok team is also harder for the general South African public, the vast majority of whom do not have satellite TV, to relate to and support. How many rugby fans have actually seen Coenie Oosthuizen play lately? But most rugby fans will know that Gqoboka has been in rampaging form for the Bulls.

Ever since Apartheid was introduced to rip apart the fabric of our society, we have lost cricketers to overseas teams. The original outflux was to England, but lately there has been a surge of South African products playing for New Zealand.

Amazing as it might be for a country of five million people and more than 26 million sheep, New Zealand is not just the best producer of woollen products in the world, but they stand on the verge of being the best Test cricket team on the planet as well. That after falling just one run (or one boundary or one correct umpiring decision) short of winning the ODI World Cup.

So New Zealand certainly have a strong national cricket team at the moment. Which is ironic because there have been a pile of South African imports who couldn’t crack it here but have made it big on that island.

Left-arm quick Neil Wagner is the current enforcer of the bowling attack, BJ Watling is arguably the best Test wicketkeeper/batsman in the world (joining Kruger van Wyk and Glen Phillips as Saffers who have donned the gloves for the Black Caps), Colin Munro is a flashy white-ball player and no-one should need reminding of what Grant Elliott did to the Proteas in the 2015 World Cup semi-final.

Conway has now joined that list and his is an interesting tale. Having been a schoolboy prodigy, the Johannesburger went through hell just trying to establish himself as a franchise cricketer. In 21 four-day franchise games he could only average 21 and his white-ball averages are almost identical.

And then in 2017 he decided to make a fresh start halfway across the world and pow! Conway is now one of the most exciting newcomers to international cricket and his 200 against England on Test debut at Lord’s must be one of the finest performances in a first Test ever.

But blaming CSA for letting this late-blooming talent slip through their fingers is one of my pet hates. Sure, transformation priorities do lead to certain people being favoured when it comes to selection, but Conway was given every opportunity here but for some reason just could not perform well enough to become a household name.

He deserves nothing but praise though for how he has rejuvenated his career.

Lungi Ngidi exploited a pitch with some life in it in superb style on the opening day of the first Test against the West Indies at St Lucia, taking five for 19 in 13.5 overs as the hosts were bundled out for their lowest ever total against South Africa – a dismal 97 all out.

While the pitch continued to provide movement and there was swing in the air all through the first day, it was tremendous discipline and the many hours of skills work that Ngidi has been putting in that financed his first five-wicket haul in an innings since he took six for 39 on debut against India in January 2018.

Ngidi, like all the South African fast bowlers, bowled a superb line, sticking consistently to the channel just outside off stump, and his length was also excellent. It meant that the West Indies batsmen were unable to score easily and, with the movement on offer, any expansive strokeplay outside off-stump was very risky.

“You were never really in as a batsman, but it felt good to get a five-for because it’s been a long time since I got one. My Test spot was in doubt and it’s still a work in progress, but behind the scenes I’ve had to work very hard on my fitness and in the gym, but the most important thing was working on my skill. To be able to swing the ball away from the batsman now has been very useful.

“You can get carried away when there’s nip and swing, but my role-definition is very clear – my job was to keep one end quiet, not give them anything. I just tried to zone in on off-stump and I felt more comfortable after lunch, my rhythm clicked in the afternoon and I love the Dukes ball because it seems to still swing after a long time,” said Ngidi, who took five for nine in 6.5 overs in the second session.

Anrich Nortje was the co-conspirator in the rout of the West Indies, bowling superbly in the morning session as he took three for eight in six overs and finished with four for 35 in 11. Ngidi, employing more subtle skills than the fast and furious Nortje, said the focus of the South African attack was to work together as a unit, something they certainly achieved.

“I’ve been working a lot together with Anrich, pretty much being trying to hunt together with him. To see him take on the top-order like he did was what we hoped for and he got us off to the perfect start. I just tried to keep applying pressure. Kagiso Rabada really had them under pressure as well, which should not go unnoticed.

“Hunting together is what we’re trying to restore as a bowling unit and we’ve made the perfect start to this series,” Ngidi said.

Keegan Petersen and Kyle Verreynne may have felt like they were frozen out of the Test team given how long they have had to wait for their chance, but like London Buses two gaps have come along at the same time and they have both made their debut in the first Test between South Africa and the West Indies at St Lucia.

Petersen has been part of the squad since December 2019 and Verreynne was first called up in ODI cricket a couple of months later. They have both come through the fertile ground of Western Cape cricket, although Petersen comes from the Boland and Verreynne hails from Wynberg Boys High School and Western Province Schools.

With the West Indies winning the toss and choosing to bat first, they will be hoping the Daren Sammy National Cricket Stadium pitch becomes nice and flat as they look to make their mark in a South African batting line-up that has lost a vast amount of experience in the last few years. Petersen is the replacement for retired former captain Faf du Plessis and Verreynne gets his chance due to new vice-captain Temba Bavuma having a hip injury.

The 27-year-old Petersen has been pretty much permanently piling on the runs in franchise cricket in the last four seasons. In that time he has not once averaged less than 44 and has posted eight centuries in 39 matches for the Knights and Dolphins, who he joined last season. He left the Cape Cobras in 2017 due to limited opportunities, the elegant right-hander playing only seven matches for them.

While there has been disappointment in some quarters that Verreynne has had to wait until now for his Test debut, as the back-up wicketkeeper to Quinton de Kock his chances are always going to be limited. But four hundreds and 16 fifties in 32 matches for the Cobras are not to be scoffed at, and many of those big innings have come when the Cobras have been struggling and conditions are hard.

The 24-year-old embodies the grit and determination so many South African middle-order batsmen are famous for and he will want to lift what has been a disappointing output by the Proteas batsmen recently.