Ken Borland

Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa has already accepted that there is no way Cricket South Africa will be able to hold their AGM on December 5, but that does not mean the new interim board of directors he announced on Friday are there for a holiday.

Mthethwa tasked the interim board with completing their mandate within three months, although he did leave the door open for their term of office to be extended.

“The interim board need to hit the ground running and deal with the current governance and structural issues. They should aim to implement the Nicholson Commission recommendations, consider the Fundudzi Forensic Report and take the recommended action or whatever action they deem to be appropriate, review all board decisions made since 2019 and restore the integrity and reputation of CSA.

“They have three months to do this, but that may be extended based on their progress. We hope they will deliver because this group knows exactly what it has to do and the Members Council still has an obligation to ensure their work is moving well. But there is no way December 5 can remain as the date for their AGM, which could have been avoided if certain people had listened earlier,” Mthethwa said on Friday.

The new interim board of directors is chaired by Judge Zak Yacoob, a former justice of the Constitutional Court, and includes other ‘independent’ figures in Caroline Mampuru, the deputy head of the Special Investigative Unit, Stavros Nicolaou, a senior executive for a major pharmaceutical company, and Andile Dawn Mbatha, the chief financial officer of the Independent Electoral Commission.

But a trio of passionate cricket-lovers who have gone to town in recent times in their criticism of the organisation and the recently-resigned board have also found accommodation on the interim board.

The most astonishing appointment is that of Haroon Lorgat, who has been at the forefront of CSA’s critics and was the federation’s chief executive as recently as September 2017, before being deposed by the power bloc that included Thabang Moroe, whose tenure and subsequent suspension and firing have been central to CSA’s governance crisis. But Lorgat is an internationally-respected administrator who is a former CEO of the International Cricket Council and CSA was a stable organisation during his watch.

Omphile Ramela, the president of the South African Cricketers Association, has also been a strident critic of CSA on behalf of the players, while Judith February is a lawyer and governance expert for the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Institute for Security Studies, as well as a respected columnist who has also expressed her dismay over the administration of a sport she is clearly passionate about.

Andre Odendaal, the former CEO of the Western Province Cricket Association and the Cape Cobras, is another appointee, who has had a long history in the game as a first-class player, administrator and historian.

There is also a member of the old guard on the interim board in Xolani Vonya, the recently-resigned Easterns president who has been a strong supporter of both Moroe and company secretary Welsh Gwaza, who has been seen as a stumbling block to change at the organisation.

Vonya has been a controversial figure because the Easterns union have been wanting to get rid of him for many months, including holding a vote of no confidence against him, but Moroe and Gwaza gave him legal support to fight his removal.

Cricket South Africa on Thursday officially parted ways with their chief executive Thabang Moroe, announcing that he has been fired with immediate effect for serious misconduct, but the size of his misdemeanours is only likely to be revealed in the coming months as the dismissed administrator’s legal team have already indicated they will fight his axing in court.

CSA’s brief statement on Thursday said the “decision was based on expert external legal opinion supported by the findings emanating from an independent forensic investigation” but they gave no details of what exactly Moroe had done wrong. And the CSA Board have already rebuffed requests for the forensic report to be made public, including from their own Members Council, which is scheduled to elect a new Board on September 5.

Many believe the report implicates the Board in many of the things Moroe has been punished for, a perception his legal team have supported.

At the time of his suspension, way back in December, Moroe had presided over a huge deterioration in CSA’s relationships with key stakeholders such as the players’ union, sponsors and media. He was also accused of excessive credit card spending and procurement irregularities.

The forensic investigators, Fundudzi Forensic Services, interviewed a range of stakeholders before submitting their report in May, since when CSA have supplied numerous different excuses for not finalising the matter more timeously.

Tellingly, Moroe did not avail himself of the opportunity to be interviewed by Fundudzi, a point CSA were quick to highlight in their statement on Thursday.

“Mr Thabang Moroe was offered sufficient opportunity to provide representations to the independent forensic auditors and to the Board regarding the allegations of misconduct, which opportunity he failed and/or refused to utilise,” the statement read.

Moroe’s legal team are likely to include this in any legal action they take, given that they also targeted the chairperson overseeing his disciplinary hearing, demanding that they be replaced by an independent figure.

As much as the CSA Board may now believe the Moroe matter is done and dusted, there are numerous parties who are determined to ensure the forensic report is made public, and the axed CEO will certainly be using it in his defence. The behaviour of the CSA Board will then be in the spotlight.

Eastern Cape Cricket on Thursday called on Cricket South Africa (CSA) to do “something tangible to put an end to racism at all levels of the sport”, perhaps unaware that the national body had already released a statement the previous night placing on record all the initiatives they have already implemented to ensure transformation of the cricket system.

CSA also reaffirmed their support for the Black Lives Matter movement and said it welcomed both Lungi Ngidi’s initial statement in this regard and the letter of support made by 36 Black coaches and former players.

CSA said they have spent nearly R385 million on cricket transformation and development in the 2019/20 financial year alone and will continue to invest resources in those programs. They pointed out that 10 of the 12-person CSA Board, including president Chris Nenzani and vice-president Beresford Williams, are Black, six of them being Black African. CSA has 64 full-time employees, 52 of which are Black.

In terms of coaching, 92% of nationally accredited coaches in South Africa are Black and 67% of national umpires and match referees.

According to the CSA statement, they support 612 township-based cricket clubs, 1052 township primary school cricket clubs and 572 township high school cricket clubs. They added, however, that the facilities in these areas remain a huge area of concern for the organisation.

Meanwhile, Rassie van der Dussen showed why he is not just a superb batsman but also a top-class human being as he became the first White current Protea to publicly back the Black Lives Matter movement.

“I support BLM, I’m against all murders, physical, character and cultural murder. I support equal opportunities for all. Because I support BLM it does not mean that I support violence or Marxism, therefore I refuse to be labelled by people,” Van der Dussen said in a tweet.

“The Boards of Eastern Province Cricket and the Eastern Cape Cricket Warriors franchise call on Cricket South Africa to take to heart the racism issues raised by former national players and coaches – many of whom are from the Eastern Cape. It is not enough to merely condemn incidents of racism and to publicly support the Black Lives Matter movement. Something tangible must be done to put an end to racism at all levels of the sport – and particularly at professional level where the example needs to be set,” the Eastern Cape Cricket statement said.

Andrew Breetzke, the CEO of the South African Cricketers’ Association, told Sport24 on Thursday that a re-evaluation of both their and CSA’s role in systemic racism needs to take place.

“SACA has life skills programmes that deal directly with diversity in teams and we need to revisit that. We have systems in place that have dealt with issues where players feel they have been unfairly treated in the past, and that still stands, but we need to look at them again. We are, and have always been, there to take up issues for players. In any given season, there are a number of issues that are raised. The system does work. 

“What has come to the fore in the last two weeks, though, is the unconscious biases that exist and that requires some work from everybody. We’re pleased that players are speaking up about things that have impacted their careers in the past. We have to welcome that. We have to have those discussions. That’s how we look at this and it’s incumbent on all stakeholders to look within,” Breetzke said.

A statement from the Proteas team regarding the Black Lives Matter movement was expected on Thursday but had still not been made at the time of going to press.

Much like the country as a whole after the pillaging of the State Capturers, the future of South African cricket is finely balanced at the moment with the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic just placing more strain on a sport that was already under enormous financial pressure and stumbling blindly under the leadership of self-serving, pernicious administrators.

Cricket Capture is real and the malfeasants who have only been interested in their own power and enrichment are still very much alive and kicking in the halls of administration. They have no intention of losing their seat at the table that allows them to sate their voracious appetites.

It is unsurprising then, given the total lack of integrity they have previously shown, that they would resort to dirty tricks and shadowy tactics to discredit those who genuinely have the good of the game at heart. In the minds of these blights on the game, cricket is there to serve them, not the other way round.

The fraudulent document circulated this week claiming national coach Mark Boucher is a shareholder in 3TCricket is typical of a dirty tricks campaign and proves the existence of these nefarious forces. Acting CEO Jacques Faul is also coming under severe pressure and director of cricket Graeme Smith is for some reason being tarnished as “anti-transformation”. Lest we forget, as captain he probably made the biggest contribution ever to transforming the national team by coming up with the ProteaFire mantra that enabled the team to embrace diversity and develop a strong, unified culture.

It is absolutely laughable that Faul, Smith and Boucher are being accused of somehow pulling off a “coup” and putting Cricket South Africa back under White control. Faul was appointed – for the second time – by a majority Black board led by president Chris Nenzani; Smith was originally headhunted for his position by former CEO Thabang Moroe; and Boucher, who won five domestic trophies in three seasons, certainly has the support of the Black players in the national squad, many of whom have spoken about how helpful it has been to have coaches with huge international experience guiding the Proteas at this delicate stage of rebuilding.

It is clear though that the Cricket Capturers are planning another coup themselves. By getting rid of Faul, who has now been placed on a month-to-month contract, they would likely get rid of Smith as well. South Africa’s greatest captain only took up the position of Director of Cricket after Faul was appointed, having previously declined to work under Moroe.

The CSA Board, who hold ultimate power, is full of Cricket Capturers and those who have aided and abetted them, and they are working hard to maintain their grip on the game.

Apart from the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic and their ever-shrinking resources in terms of both finances and players, truly transforming the game into one that reaches all communities and provides equal opportunities for all talent is a seemingly never-ending challenge for CSA.

In the last week sports minister Nathi Mthethwa has castigated Nenzani for the all-White look to the senior management of the Proteas and Central Gauteng Lions and former Proteas spinner Aaron Phangiso has spoken out about the lack of transformation that has dogged his own career.

Phangiso of course went to the 2015 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand and did not play a single game, one of the most disgusting examples of selectorial window-dressing in Proteas history. And that was under the watch of Nenzani, Haroon Lorgat as CEO and Russell Domingo as coach; none of them being White. Of course when it came to the semi-finals then the politicians saw fit to get involved and the infamous dropping of the in-form Kyle Abbott happened.

Mthethwa’s criticism of Nenzani happened at the Parliamentary Sports Portfolio Committee meeting with CSA top brass a week ago, and it was interesting in my research to come across CSA’s presentation to the same body back in 2015.

The World Cup semi-final storm was described as “one mischievous CWC selection issue” and a list of five Black African cricketers who were being assisted in a High Performance Squad was provided. Temba Bavuma is the only one of those five to have played regularly for the Proteas; Eddie Leie (2), Mangaliso Mosehle (7), Mthokozisi Shezi (1) and Khaya Zondo (5) have pulled on the Green and Gold just 15 times between them. They have all seen their franchise careers take a dip in the last five years as well.

Nenzani has been president of CSA since 2013 and I would love to know what transformation successes he can claim to have delivered in the longest ever tenure as president? Transformation has been under Black control for the last decade so why are Faul, Smith and Boucher suddenly being blamed for the lack of progress on that front?

The treatment Omphile Ramela had to endure from Moroe and the CSA Board as president of the players’ union and the complaints I hear from Black African staff that they were underpaid before Faul returned as CEO make me wonder just who exactly is anti-transformation?