Ken Borland

Graeme Smith and Jacques Faul made it abundantly clear this week that after their recent dealings with the BCCI they believe Saurav Ganguly is the right man to become the next International Cricket Council chairman, but their error was in not following the correct channels for such shows of support, which is through the Cricket South Africa Board.

Shashank Manohar’s term as ICC chairman is set to expire in July and the Indian has suggested he will not stand for another stint, meaning world cricket’s top post could be up for grabs at the ICC annual general meeting in a couple of months. Ganguly, the current president of the BCCI and the man who as captain of India began their blossoming as international superpowers, has been identified as a frontrunner to replace his compatriot.

Smith, who captained the Proteas against Ganguly’s Indian team, has reason to back him because the BCCI have been supportive of accommodating South Africa in the post-Covid Future Tours Programme, most notably by agreeing in principle to playing three T20 internationals here at the end of August.

“Strong leadership is going to be the key for cricket going forward and we need people who understand the modern game. I’ve known Saurav for a long time, he is highly-resected and is in the best position to be the new president [chairman] of the ICC, a very important position. It would be great to see him get in and good for the game because he’s got the credentials and the skills to take it forward,” Smith, South Africa’s Director of Cricket, said this week.

But his statements in a remote media conference were followed hours later by this statement from CSA president Chris Nenzani:

“We must respect both the ICC protocol and our own protocol in deciding which candidate to back. There have been no candidates nominated as yet and once such nominations have been made the Board of CSA will take its decision in terms of its own protocol. At the moment we don’t want to anticipate any candidates who may be nominated for this important position to lead the game we all love.”

What that means is that the CSA Board will decide who to back for ICC chairman and Nenzani will be the person casting that vote, not chief executive Faul nor Smith. It was not quite a knee in the groin from Nenzani to Smith, but certainly a reminder that his powers are largely restricted to the field of play and not the politics of the boardroom.

But providing the BCCI continue to support South African cricket, thereby indirectly providing the board members with the gravy-rich meals they so love, there is no reason South Africa and Nenzani would not back Ganguly.

Given the current financial state of Cricket South Africa, they need as much charity as they can get and India have the deepest pockets.

CSA president Chris Nenzani

Cricket South Africa’s affiliates on Saturday voted to extend the term of president Chris Nenzani, three independent directors and three non-independent directors by another year.

Last year the CSA Board was recomposed to include seven non-independent directors, including the president and vice-president, and five independent directors, and the terms of all directors were set at three years.

But at Saturday’s annual general meeting at OR Tambo International Airport, a special resolution was passed to stagger the tenure of the directors and avoid wholesale changes to the board every three years.

According to the resolutions, Nenzani, three independent directors and three non-independent directors will now stay in office until the conclusion of the 2016 AGM.

The explanatory notes issued with the resolution stated: “The challenge, however, is that each three-year term will present an election conundrum in that all the directors’ terms of appointment would expire and potentially a number of the directors might not be re-elected, meaning that the board could be challenged by the loss of valuable institutional knowledge and memory, thereby impacting the smooth running of the company.”

The AGM also approved resolutions postponing the expansion of the board (as agreed during the Nicholson Commission of Inquiry) to 16 directors (seven independent and nine non-independent) to “an appropriate time” and removing a clause in their Memorandum of Incorporation stating that CSA shall comply with the constitution of Sascoc [South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee) and any directives issued by them.

“It is submitted that we should not expressly document this in our MOI in the event that we may in future, for good reason, be forced to legally challenge a directive from any such organisation,” the explanatory notes stated.

 http://www.sport24.co.za/Cricket/Proteas/CSA-extends-term-of-president-20140913

Bisho schoolteacher Chris Nenzani became South African cricket’s premier administrator at the weekend, promising a new era for the game as he was elected president and chairman of Cricket South Africa’s board of directors.

Nenzani was the winner of a two-horse race with Western Province’s Beresford Williams and was an optimistic man as he faced a media contingent not yet convinced that Cricket South Africa has really changed its ways.

“We have come from a very difficult period and if you had asked me a year ago if there was a crisis, I would have said ‘Yes’.”

“But we have now gone beyond those trying times and we are looking forward to a very promising future. We will be checking our governance structure to ensure we regain public confidence and we must remember that the role of the administration is to remain in the background while the players are at the forefront,” Nenzani, the president of the Border Cricket Board, said after his election at the Wanderers.

While Nenzani was a popular choice and is a likeable man who distanced himself from fired chief executive Gerald Majola early on in the bonus scandal, CSA’s annual general meeting was notable for the number of administrators who have somehow survived their disgraceful actions – and lack of action – while the game was being looted and embarrassed in this country.

Andy O’Connor, the Easterns president, was at the forefront of the pro-Majola lobby and quite vicious in his criticism of the media over the last couple of years, and yet his name is in the list of seven non-independent directors who will run cricket for the next year alongside five independent appointees.

Northerns president Vincent Sinovich, Free State’s Leon Crawley and North-West’s Archie Pretorius were in the minority in terms of CSA board members who insisted that Majola should face independent investigation and their reward has been to be cast into the relative wilderness.

Norman Arendse, the former president of CSA who then tried to do the jobs of the chief executive and convenor of selectors, is one of the independent directors, in accordance with the recommendation of the nominations’ committee, which just happened to be dominated by people from his home city, Cape Town.

The other independent directors are Wesizwe Platinum’s Dawn Mokhobo, Constitutional Court trustee Vusi Pikoli, Absa’s Louis von Zeuner and Old Mutual chief operating officer Mohamed Iqbal Khan, while the other CSA nominations are Nenzani, vice-president Peter Cyster of Boland, Graeme Sauls (EP), Faeez Jaffar (KZN) and Rihan Richards (GW).

The decision to give the non-independent directors the majority of board places flies in the face of the Nicholson recommendations, but CSA was given the easy way out through the interference of the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee [Sascoc], which insisted that the game should be run by “sports people”.

Nenzani admitted that one of the first tasks of the new board would be to reassure the public that it is not lapsing into the bad old ways that forced Sports Minister Fikile Mbalula to institute the Nicholson Inquiry in the first place.

“I wouldn’t say we have backtracked. My understanding is that our restructuring is not just about the composition of the board. As members of Sascoc, we are committed to continuing our engagement with them. We have to get the right balance between independent directors and those with cricketing knowledge,” Nenzani said.

Outgoing acting president Willie Basson described the situation as being “stranded” between Sascoc and the wishes of Mbalula and Judge Nicholson.

“CSA has engaged with the Nicholson process in good faith but in the end found itself stranded between powerful forces and seriously conflicting objectives. Being left stranded between the high aspirations of the Memorandum of Agreement with the minister and Sascoc’s requirements was both uncomfortable and disappointing,” Basson said.

Unfortunately Nenzani sounded like the National Party politicians of old who claimed they willingly ushered the country into democracy when he defended the continued presence of Majola sympathisers on the board by saying: “These are the same people who have taken this process to where we are now, they took it upon themselves to undo what made the public uncomfortable.”

Ah, Mr Nenzani, the CSA board had to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the Nicholson Inquiry and it was only thanks to the perseverance of the sports minister and Basson, who the board tried to get rid of, that there has been any reform at all.

The fact that the AGM took place half-an-hour after the start of play on the second day of the Test shows that many of the administrators seemingly have little interest in the actual game. The gravy bowl is perhaps their prime focus and it seems the same old snouts are in it.

http://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2013-02-04-csa-stranded-between-sascoc-and-the-wishes-of-mbalula-and-judge-nicholson/#.UZvqyaI3A6w

Chris Nenzani was elected as the new president and chairman of the board of directors on Saturday as Cricket South Africa deemed themselves to have emerged from the bonus scandal crisis.

“We have come from a very difficult period and if you had asked me a year ago if there was a crisis, I would have said ‘Yes’.

“But we have now gone beyond those trying times and we are looking forward to a very promising future. We will be checking our governance structure to ensure we regain public confidence and we must remember that the role of the administration is to remain in the background while the players are at the forefront,” schoolteacher Nenzani, the president of the Border Cricket Board, told media after his election at the Wanderers on Saturday.

The annual general meeting was closed to the media, but Nenzani’s only challenger for the post was believed to be Western Province’s Beresford Williams.

Williams is one of the seven non-independent directors elected on to the board, alongside Nenzani, vice-president Peter Cyster (Boland), Andy O’Connor (Easterns), Graeme Sauls (EP), Faeez Jaffar (KZN) and Rihan Richards (GW).

Five independent directors – controversial former CSA president Advocate Norman Arendse, Wesizwe Platinum’s Dawn Mokhobo, Constitutional Court trustee Vusi Pikoli, Absa’s Louis von Zeuner and Old Mutual chief operating officer Mohamed Iqbal Khan – will make up the remainder of the new board.

Non-independent directors will outnumber independents 7-5, but Nenzani said it was unfair for this to be classified as CSA backtracking on its agreements to implement the recommendations of the Nicholson Inquiry into their corporate governance after their former chief executive, Gerald Majola, was implicated in receiving improper bonus payments.

“I wouldn’t say we have backtracked. My understanding is that our restructuring is not just about the composition of the board. As members of Sascoc [the South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee], we are committed to continuing our engagement with them. We have to get the right balance between independent directors and those with cricketing knowledge,” Nenzani said.

Acting president Willie Basson, in his outgoing address, said “the incoming board will be faced with a major challenge to comply with Sascoc’s requirement of increasing the non-independent directors on the board to nine representing the geopolitical regions.

“CSA has engaged with the Nicholson process in good faith but in the end found itself stranded between powerful forces and seriously conflicting objectives. Being left stranded between the high aspirations of the Memorandum of Agreement with the Minister [of Sport Fikile Mbalula] and Sascoc’s requirements was both uncomfortable and disappointing.”