Ken Borland

Cricket South Africa have questioned the timing of former Australian captain Tim Paine’s allegations that the Proteas were also doing illegal work on the ball now that the great ball-tampering scandal of 2018 is back in the news.

Paine inherited the captaincy after Steve Smith was suspended, but stood down in November last year after it was revealed the married cricketer had been sending explicit messages to a Cricket Tasmania employee.

Paine’s autobiography, The Price Paid, was released on Tuesday and his shock accusations will obviously be great publicity for the book. Paine accuses the Proteas of ball-tampering even after Australia’s skulduggery with sandpaper was exposed at Newlands in the third Test, and David Warner, Cameron Bancroft and Smith were sent home in disgrace.

“I saw it happen in the fourth Test of that series. Think about that. After everything that had happened in Cape Town, after all the headlines and bans and carry-on,” Paine writes.

“I was standing at the bowlers’ end in the next Test when a shot came up on the screen of a South African player at mid-off having a huge crack at the ball.

“The television director, who had played an active role in catching out Cam, immediately pulled the shot off the screen.

“We went to the umpires about it, which might seem a bit poor, but we’d been slaughtered and were convinced they’d been up to it since the first Test. But the footage got lost. As it would,” Paine complained.

CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki told The Citizen it was upsetting that none of these allegations were made at the time of the numerous investigations that were held, and are now only appearing four-and-a-half years later.

“CSA and Cricket Australia have engaged on this matter and the necessary sanctions levied at the time. Both bodies have reiterated their commitment to a clean game, … above reproach,” Moseki said on Tuesday.

“It is unfortunate that allegations of ball-tampering are emerging at this stage, which information could have been useful had it come out at the time when the rot in the game was being rooted out.

“While CSA respects the rights of individuals to air their opinions, it also calls upon all those who love the game to come forward with any information of misconduct on the field at the appropriate time, and not wait for time to elapse. This will assist the relevant authorities within the system to investigate and institute appropriate relevant sanctions should they be required,” Moseki said.

Without their sandpaper, Australia’s attack in the fourth Test at the Wanderers had as much venom as a granny doing flower-arranging as the Proteas piled up 488 and 344/6 declared. Australia’s batting was equally lame as they crashed to 221 and 119 all out to be thrashed by 492 runs.

The independent arbitration panel that cleared Graeme Smith of racism allegations found that Thami Tsolekile was not selected to replace Mark Boucher in 2012 for cricketing reasons, saying the wicketkeeper/batsman himself accepted that AB de Villiers being chosen ahead of him was better for the team.

Tsolekile testified at the arbitration in support of Cricket South Africa’s claim that Smith had used his influence as captain to persuade the selectors not to include Tsolekile based on his race, after Boucher suffered the eye injury that ended his career.

But while finding that Smith, the Proteas longest-serving and most successful Test captain, did have an influence on selection, the arbitrators, advocates Ngwako Maenetje SC and Michael Bishop, ruled that he did not actively seek to exclude Tsolekile because of his race. Instead they found “it is more likely that Smith just wanted his team to win”.

Andrew Hudson, the convenor of selectors at the time and current CSA Board member, and Linda Zondi, who was also a selector before succeeding Hudson as the convenor, gave evidence that De Villiers had been selected for the tour to England in 2012 as the reserve wicketkeeper and both the selectors and coach Gary Kirsten agreed that De Villiers replacing Boucher behind the stumps would allow them to play an extra specialist batsman in JP Duminy, himself Black.

Smith was consulted about the decision and agreed with the strategy.

In Paragraph 90 of their findings, the arbitrators state: “Tsolekile … agreed with the proposition that this was ‘a strategy that will make complete sense and was something which played very strongly in favour of the Proteas cricket team’. He accepted that there were ‘very good cricketing reasons to prefer AB de Villiers to yourself for the position in the Test starting XI’.”

CSA then tried to change their argument and alleged Smith was guilty of discrimination by omission because he had an obligation to speak out on behalf of Tsolekile because the wicketkeeper/batsman was previously disadvantaged.

But the arbitrators found this change of tack was prejudicial to Smith, describing it as “a trap sprung on him” and they also criticised CSA for making submissions that were inconsistent with the facts.

The arbitrators did have sympathy for Tsolekile, describing his non-selection as “unfair” and his subsequent involvement in a matchfixing scandal as only “exacerbating the tragedy” of his story of adversity.

The Proteas may be performing at a renewed level of excellence at the moment, but Cricket South Africa continue to come hard at head coach Mark Boucher, who has now been formally charged with “gross misconduct” over the allegations of racism made against him by the Social Justice and Nation-Building report.

In what one CSA insider described as “an aggressive attack” on Boucher, the record-breaking wicketkeeper/batsman was served with charges under the organisation’s disciplinary code the day before the ODI series against India began.

Having pulled off an improbable 2-1 win in the Test series against India after losing the first match, the Proteas then registered an impressive victory in the first ODI in Paarl in midweek.

But the CSA Board’s antagonistic attitude towards their own national team and management was shown when they failed to send out any form of congratulatory message to the captain, players or coaching staff for beating the then No.1 side in Test cricket. CSA have made a habit in recent years of sending out congratulatory statements for even minor triumphs.

The SJN report accused Boucher of discrimination and using racial slurs relating to Paul Adams’ complaint of the Proteas team using a song referring to him as “a brown shit in the ring” during their fines meetings back in the late 1990s.

CSA on Thursday afternoon confirmed that Advocate Terry Motau (SC) would chair the disciplinary hearing, with the parties meeting on January 26 to determine a timetable for proceedings.

Legal sources have suggested that CSA’s already depleted kitty could be emptied even further if they try to use the SJN report to dismiss either Boucher or director of cricket Graeme Smith. Informed sources have indicated enquiries are still being made into whether Smith should also be charged, but that matter is complicated by the fact that the former Proteas captain is technically an independent contractor.

Lawyers representing several respondents implicated in the report have labelled it as “flawed” and have pointed out that the ombudsman, Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, admitted himself that his findings were “tentative” and that he could not make “definitive findings” based on “untested evidence”.

The impartiality of the lawyers involved has also been called into question because 260 paragraphs of the final report were merely copied-and-pasted directly from the complainants’ submissions.

The fact that such a significant accusation as racism has now been publicly made against Boucher and Smith is bound to lead to major legal challenges.

“They are not going to go quietly, they’re not just fighting for their jobs but also to clear their names,” a source close to both former Proteas stars said.

Paul Harris, whose expert knowledge of the physics of spin bowling has led to him being used as a Proteas bowling consultant, said on Wednesday that he is yet to receive any official confirmation from Cricket South Africa that his part-time services will no longer be used and that allegations he was earning astronomical amounts for his work are ridiculous.

CSA acting chief executive Kugandrie Govender has confirmed that they told the sports minister this week that from now on only Black people would be used as consultants and there has been speculation that the organisation was spending more than a million rand a month to use the services of Harris and batting coach Jacques Kallis.

Harris told The Citizen on Wednesday that while he could not speak for what South Africa’s leading run-scorer was earning, allegations of a million rand were farfetched.

“CSA have not said anything to me yet but all I want is for South African cricket to be better. If CSA or the spinners believe there is someone better to do that then they must go for it, if they feel I’m not the right person then they must use someone else, I have no problem with that. I’m sure someone like Robin Peterson would also do a great job, but he’s already got a full-time job as coach of the Warriors.

“I also have a full-time day job and since January I have not earned a cent from CSA, even though I’ve been helping the spinners in my own free time. Just the other day I was sent 10 videos and asked what I think, which I’m happy to do for nothing. Consultants generally get paid a higher rate per day than a full-time employee because they only work so many days in a month.

“But I don’t see how the consultants’ fees could add up to a million rand a month. In terms of myself, I earned nowhere near that, not even a quarter of that amount. I only worked 20 days for the Proteas over the whole of last summer,” Harris told The Citizen on Wednesday.

Harris was initially appointed as the spin bowling consultant after South Africa’s number one Test spinner Keshav Maharaj requested his help, and has subsequently been profusive in his thanks for the help of the fellow left-armer who played 37 Tests and played a key role in the Proteas gaining the number one ranking.

And it is not just Maharaj who Harris has been helping, the 41-year-old businessman now building relationships with the other spinners to match the great one he has with the Dolphins star.

With CSA adopting what would now seem to be a “No thanks, we’re fine” attitude towards enlisting the help of many White Proteas who took the country to number one across all three formats less than a decade ago, it is worth noting that South African consultants are paid considerably less than those former players who are helping countries like England, Australia and India.