Ken Borland

Former acting CEO Jacques Faul did his best during his nine months with the organisation to put out the raging inferno that is Cricket South Africa, but on Wednesday he said anybody who served in a leadership position in the federation, including himself, needs to take responsibility for the mess.

Faul was appointed acting CEO last December when Thabang Moroe was suspended with CSA in freefall as their relationships with the players, sponsors and the media were utterly broken. Having restored those relationships and also steered CSA through the Covid-19 pandemic, Faul spent the last three months of his tenure fighting against the internal divisions that wrack the organisation, eventually falling foul of the Board and having his powers removed, which led to him quitting with immediate effect, a month before the end of his contract.

“The calibre of people in management relates directly to the stability of an organisation and the performance of the team, and something is horribly wrong when the administrators are the focus and not the people playing in the game. We have to say that anybody who served in a leadership position, including me, got it badly wrong and we now need to fix it.

“I think we will and there are some very positive things happening and I hope the interim board will bring stability. There are enough good people in cricket to make it work and we have lots of talented cricketers – we should always be top-three in my mind. But it’s not just about academic qualifications or business experience on a CV, it’s about the heart and the leaders have got to love the game,” Faul said at the Titans season launch on Wednesday at SuperSport Park, where he is reinstalled as CEO.

Faul said the health of CSA could only be restored by a cleanout and finding new leadership who are passionate about cricket and also understand the workings of the sport.

“If any of us have been in a leadership position for a while, then we have to collectively take responsibility for the space cricket is in. It’s never just one person and we should all take responsibility for letting the players, sponsors and fans down. CSA needs a clean up, my personal opinion is that is time to move on and get new people in who will do things for the right reasons.

“It’s all good and well having a very good professional CV, but the leaders coming in have got to love the game and understand sport and cricket, maybe that’s what we’ve learnt from this whole fiasco. Things have never been as bad as this before, we had even less direction and more infighting. I’m a bit worried that we are hearing the same people telling a different story,” Faul said.

Bulls scrumhalf Ivan van Zyl has warned that their brilliant victory over the Sharks is worth nothing unless they build on it and maintain that momentum in their huge games coming up against the Stormers in Pretoria on Saturday and versus the Lions at Ellis Park the following weekend.

Top spot on the log is their’s at the moment, but the Bulls will need to keep winning to hold off the thus far unbeaten Free State Cheetahs and Stormers, who have won both their matches, because Jake White’s team then have a bye.

“As a team we took a lot of confidence from the Sharks game and that performance couldn’t have come at a better time. Before that we had been a bit stop-start, we didn’t have much flow in our first two games. Every game is important but now it’s really important that we build on that display and move forward, otherwise that win won’t help us.

“We have a couple of massive games coming up, but at least we were more clinical at the right times, there was better decision-making and we identified space better. Better decisions lead to better play, and this time we rounded off our chances. Coach Jake is very good at making sure that it is all about getting the team to win and we all understand our roles every week,” Van Zyl said.

While the Bulls were much more accurate with ball in hand, and also off the boot, their defence was also highly impressive against the Sharks as they conceded just one try.

“We’re very happy with our defence and the combination of scoring six tries and just conceding one is massive for us. The more consistent we are in our defence, the more opportunities we’ll have to win, so it’s something we continue to work on and against the Stormers we’ll come up against different players with different skill-sets. But we take a lot of confidence from the defensive effort against the Sharks.

“Joey Mongalo has been great for us as defence coach, he has great energy and clearly loves what he does, he’s passionate about defence and that rubs off on the team. We are eager to get better every week. The basics of our defensive system haven’t changed that much, but there’s a new energy,” Van Zyl said.

The Sharks have identified the Bulls’ ability to tie them down in the tight exchanges as the key factor in their heavy defeat at Loftus Versfeld last weekend, and they are confident those problems will be fixed in time for their meeting with a similarly physical pack when they play the Pumas in Nelspruit on Saturday.

“We’ve identified where we fell short and it’s all very fixable, the errors we made were very much controllables, even though the Bulls were very good. We started well, especially up front – we stopped their mauls, we hit them hard off the line, ball-and-all, and we scrummed well. But then we just lost our way and our momentum slipped. The same thing happened against the Lions.

“So we know we have to keep the same intensity for the full 80 minutes, it’s something we’re working very hard on and it will definitely change this weekend. We can look at the bye or Lockdown for stopping our momentum, but those sort of excuses don’t help us. We have to improve every week and build back to where we were in Super Rugby,” lock Ruben van Heerden said on Tuesday.

Captain Lukhanyo Am was on the same wave-length.

“It was very frustrating because they put us under a lot of pressure at the breakdowns and set-pieces, and then we struggled for momentum and continuity. They capitalised on our mistakes, they took a lot of energy from the set-pieces and it’s something we have to work very hard to shore up. It’s unfortunate that we’ve lost Thomas du Toit, who is very experienced and one of our leaders up front,” Am said.

While the Sharks were on the wrong side of a 41-14 hammering last weekend, the Pumas really took on the Stormers and were most unfortunate to lose 42-37 after they had the favourites very much on the back foot at 14-37 down.

“The Pumas should have beaten the Stormers, tactically they were outstanding and they identified many flaws in the opposition, but in the end they were unfortunate to let it slip in the last 15 minutes. History has proven that you can’t take these smaller unions lightly, they always show up and the Pumas and Griquas have beaten us on occasion. They clearly have good coaches and a good plan,” Van Heerden said.

Am was impressed by the Pumas’ balance between attack and defence but he said the Sharks will be desperate to bounce back and they are putting in the work to do so.

“Historically our matches against the Pumas have always been close, tough games and they look a pretty balanced side. They are solid on D[efence] and they have a lot of energy with ball-in-hand, they’ll be very confident and they like running the ball. But we’ve analysed the opportunities and threats they pose, and, coming from a bad loss, we will be geared up, ready and prepared.

“We have been losing momentum early in the season but we have consecutive games now and I think the continuity will be much better as we feed off each other’s energy. Our errors are maybe influenced by rustiness, but it’s the same personnel as in Super Rugby and we should click anytime soon,” Am said.

Cricket South Africa announced on Tuesday the big news that both festive season Tests this season will be played on the Highveld, but what their press release left undisclosed was the reason for the New Years Test being shifted from Cape Town for the first time in more than a century.

Newlands has been the host every time South Africa has played a New Years Test at home since January 1, 1914, when England clinched their 5-match series with a 91-run win in the third Test, at the Old Wanderers.

But this Christmas, due to Covid-19 and the need to play in a biobubble, Sri Lanka will play the Boxing Day Test against the Proteas at SuperSport Park in Centurion starting on December 26, with the New Years Test beginning on December 3 at the new Wanderers Stadium.

The costs of setting up a biobubble for just one game in Cape Town were deemed to be too much, with Sri Lanka and the Proteas able to stay in the same place for their two Tests over the festive season, which makes financial sense, especially with no spectators expected to be allowed to attend. England are paying for a substantial portion of the biobubble for their white-ball series against South Africa in a month’s time, and they insisted on staying in Cape Town.

“It’s great for our brand and for our sponsors, so it’s a really great thing to be the host from that point of view, but we are sad that we won’t see any fans here at the Wanderers. We are thankful and excited that Cricket South Africa have chosen us as hosts. It certainly wasn’t something we planned for at the start of the year.

“But with the Boxing Day Test happening at Centurion, it means the players can stay and travel from the same place, plus Cape Town will have the England series. If even a reduced number of fans are given the go-ahead to attend then we will be ready to go. We’ve geared ourselves to be ready for whenever fans can return and all safety measures are already in place,” Jono Leaf-Wright, the CEO of the Central Gauteng Lions, told The Citizen on Tuesday.

While only the Proteas fixtures up to that second Test against Sri Lanka were confirmed on Tuesday, that is certainly not the sum total of their summer. CSA revealed that Australia and Pakistan would also feature during the summer.

Australia will arrive for three Tests in February/March, which will undoubtedly be the pinnacle of the season, while a Pakistan tour comprising three ODIs and three T20s will end the summer.

South Africa are also scheduled to tour Pakistan in January for the first time since 2007, with CSA saying a delegation leaves for the subcontinental country at the weekend to do a security assessment.

Fixtures

England tour – Friday, 27 November (18h00):1^st T20I Newlands, Cape Town; Sunday, 29 November (14h30):2^nd T20I Boland Park, Paarl; Tuesday, 1 December (18h00): 3^rd T20I Newlands, Cape Town; Friday, 4 December (13h00): 1^st ODI Newlands, Cape Town; Sunday, 6 December (10h00): 2^nd ODI Boland Park, Paarl; Wednesday, 9 December (13h00): 3^rd ODI Newlands, Cape Town.

Sri Lanka Tour – Saturday, 26-30 December (10h00): 1^st Test SuperSport Park, Centurion; Sunday, 3-7 January (10h00):2^nd Test Imperial Wanderers Stadium, Johannesburg.