Ken Borland

The International Cricket Council are in charge of the sport globally and they should take the blame for South Africa feeling forced to make their Proteas head back from Australia without playing their ODI series next January, the players’ association said on Wednesday.

Cricket South Africa announced on Wednesday that they have forfeited their three-match ODI series – and therefore potentially crucial World Cup qualifying points – that was scheduled to be played in Australia between January 12-17. The reason for this is that they are launching their new franchise T20 league then and they want all their Proteas to be available.

South African Cricketers’ Association CEO Andrew Breetzke told The Citizen that while the players are “disappointed and upset” both at missing out on the ODIs in Australia and the prospect of not automatically qualifying for the World Cup, the blame should be laid at the ICC’s door.

The Proteas are currently 11^th in the Super League, with the top eight qualifying directly for the World Cup and the rest going into a qualifying tournament. With zero points now from their matches against Australia, South Africa have eight ODIs left to qualify – three against England in South Africa early next year, three in India and the rescheduled two matches against the Netherlands.

“CSA have engaged with us and the players are obviously disappointed and upset,” Breetzke said. “It’s not an ideal situation but it was inevitable due to the ICC’s failure to show leadership around bilateral series.

“For South Africa cricket to be sustainable, bilateral series don’t do it. Every country [outside the Big Three] is feeling the same pain and T20 leagues is how they survive. CSA’s decision is no surprise, it’s about sustaining the game.

“Fica [the international players’ associations body] have been saying for the last five years that the ICC need to ensure a happy mix between bilateral cricket and T20 leagues, but nothing has been done.

“We are quite angry to be honest. This decision is the canary in the gold mine, but don’t blame CSA, blame the ICC. They should be creating windows but they’ve done nothing and international cricket is in a bad space,” Breetzke fumed.

As it is, the Proteas are in for an extremely busy summer.

Their tour of England only ends on September 12, and their three ODIs, as well as T20s, in India are believed to be in October, before they head to Australia for the T20 World Cup from October 16 to November 13.

Their Test tour of Australia then starts with the first match from December 17 in Brisbane. That series ends on January 8, but they won’t then be resting because CSA is pegging the success of their new T20 league in January on their participation.

The three ODIs against England are also scheduled for January. It now looks more and more possible that South Africa will also have to play in the World Cup qualifying tournament in June/July.

Having been one goal away from qualifying for the Women’s Hockey World Cup quarterfinals but then finishing in a share of last place, you can only feel sorry for South Africa’s women’s hockey side as they lost 1-0 to Chile in their final game to finish joint 15^th in Amsterdam.

To make matters worse, they had numerous chances against Chile but failed to take their opportunities. The momentum gained from their comeback 3-3 draw with Japan and gutsy 1-0 defeat to Germany that saw the superpowers scrape into the quarterfinals has now been lost as they head for the Commonwealth Games.

Kayla de Waal’s direct running from midfield created problems for Chile in the first quarter, but the final pass kept going astray, with the Diablos only threatening the South African goal a couple of times.

The score was still 0-0 at halftime, as both teams lacked the finishing touch even though the game had opened up.

South Africa dominated possession in the second half, but chances were wasted. This led to frustration and a yellow card for Erin Christie.

Giles Bonnet’s side weathered the storm of being a player short, but will kick themselves that they conceded the matchwinning goal a minute after being restored to 11 on the astro. They will also lament the defensive lap that left Manuela Urroz wide open to a diagonal ball that allowed her plenty of time and space to finish well.

Even though Chile were also reduced to 10 players in the final quarter, South Africa were unable to threaten their opponents’ goal.

While the defence, led by goalkeeper Phumelela Mbande and sweeper Jean-Leigh du Toit, has been outstanding in this World Cup, questions will need to be asked about an attack that was off the mark for much of the tournament.

Against a top-class England ODI outfit playing a very aggressive brand of cricket, Proteas coach Mark Boucher believes he has a plan to beat them and he wants to start creating a more settled environment with the next 50-over World Cup just 15 months away.

South Africa’s ODI form has been less convincing than the other two formats and they currently languish in 11^th place in the World Cup Qualifying Super League. They are a better side than that, however, having won 50% of their completed ODIs in the last two years, including a memorable 3-0 whitewash of India in January that unfortunately did not count for Super League points.

England currently top that table and Boucher knows how tough their three-match series against the world champions will be when it starts on July 19 in Chester-le-Street.

“England are a well-drilled team,” Boucher said on Monday. “We all know how tough it is to play them in England and we expect them to play the same very aggressive brand.

“I’m confident we have the right players though. We’ve just had a little lack of form and continuity – we’ve lost players on three occasions to the IPL and twice it was for series-deciders against Pakistan and Bangladesh.

“We need to understand that the World Cup is looming, and we need continuity and players being available. I think our plans are good, and hopefully in this series we can settle on those and get our combinations going,” Boucher said.

While multi-format players like Rassie van der Dussen, Aiden Markram, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi and Keshav Maharaj are in for a long tour – the last match is the third Test ending on September 12 – there are others who only have a short time to make an impression.

Reeza Hendricks and Janneman Malan have both lost their places in South Africa’s T20 squad and the absence of injured captain Temba Bavuma has opened up space in the top-order for them to shine.

Markram is another who can benefit from Bavuma’s absence, and the Proteas will use two warm-up matches against the England Lions on Tuesday and Thursday to work out their batting line-up.

“Temba is a massive loss, both as a player and captain, what he brings to the team is immense,” Boucher said. “But we do have back-up, guys who can come in and not be out-of-place.

“Aiden being successful is good for the Proteas set-up. He didn’t play in India but he had a long season before that. He’s had time to reflect now and he has worked on parts of his game.

“We have 17 players and we will try as much as we can to give everyone a go, but there are just two warm-up games so it is quite difficult. We’ll try to give all the batsmen a bat and all the bowlers a bowl.

“Hopefully everyone gets the chance to put their case forward. In the second game we’ll play the XI which I’d like to think will be close to what we’ll pick for the first ODI,” Boucher said.

New CSA director of cricket Enoch Nkwe has expressed a desire to keep his predecessor Graeme Smith involved in South African cricket, saying “you can’t take it away from him, he is one of the legends of the game”.

Smith’s tenure as director of cricket came to an end on March 31 and, given the often-strained relationship between him and the CSA Board, which unsuccessfully charged him with racism, he decided not to pursue a renewal of his contract.

Nkwe, the former assistant coach of the national team, was announced as Smith’s successor on June 30 and held his first press conference on July 8. Having already revealed he has a good relationship with Proteas head coach Mark Boucher, and the pair had held a fruitful meeting before the team’s departure to England, Nkwe then stated his willingness to also work with Smith.

“For the betterment of South African cricket, it will always be good to have some level of contact with Graeme, to ensure continuity,” Nkwe said.

“You can’t take it away from him, he is one of the legends of the game and our most successful captain. You want to tap into that cricket brain, see how he sees things from the outside.

“He’s been involved in the IPL, he’s still based in South Africa and he’s only a call away. Why not use him? You don’t want to lose him to the wilderness.

“So I will look to use him in whatever capacity I can. It’s the same with all of our ex-players, we want to get them closer to us,” Nkwe said.

The former Central Gauteng Lions player and coach said the Proteas team were supportive of the positive brand of cricket he wants to introduce to all CSA teams.

“It’s a very positive brand. As South Africans we are so diverse and I would like us to show the world that we can lead the cricketing space,” Nkwe said.

“Whenever we have thrown the first punch then we have been very dominant. I’d like to see that attitude spread down the pipeline, I want us to become trendsetters.

“Every time we have been positive, taken risks, not been afraid, then we’ve been a strong force. Other countries have spoken highly about our talent, we want to be in a position to win a lot more often.

“Most of the players understand my philosophy, although there are quite a few things from a strategic point of view which we still need to unpack,” Nkwe said.