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.

Former Cricket South Africa acting chief executive Kugandrie Govender’s days of working in cricket were thought to be over after she was fired from the organisation for dishonesty and incompetence, but now Border Cricket want to appoint her as their new CEO.

Govender, who replaced Jacques Faul as acting CEO in August 2020 following the suspension of Thabang Moroe, was dismissed in July 2021. She was found to have lied in the disciplinary hearing that saw former Protea Clive Eksteen lose his job as CSA’s head of sales and sponsorship. In December 2020, the CCMA ruled that Eksteen had been unfairly dismissed.

Border Cricket’s efforts to shop around for a new CEO after Andile Mxenge was dismissed in June also saw them apparently consider former CSA board member Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw for the post.

But the affiliate’s decision to appoint Govender could not be more embarrassing for their mother body, especially since current board members and former staff are busy testifying against her in the CCMA case she has brought against CSA.

While the evolution of that labour hearing is still ongoing, CSA confirmed to The Citizen that they have expressed their concern to Border Cricket over Govender’s potential appointment.

“CSA has not been formally notified of the appointment of Ms Govender by Border Cricket. However, having become aware that this may occur, we have been in contact with Border Cricket to highlight our concerns that flow from the termination of Ms Govender’s employment with CSA, and in particular the on-going legal process at the CCMA,” Lawson Naidoo, the chairman of the board, said.

Border Cricket president Simphiwe Ndzundzu is a non-independent director on the CSA Board, but is a controversial figure who was being investigated for an alleged assault on two women related to a colleague, the former player and umpire Sinethemba Mjekula, at the time of his election.

Border Cricket did not respond to a request for comment.

All-rounder Dwaine Pretorius, whose clever bowling has been reliable for the Proteas at the death, has been ruled out of the T20 World Cup due to a fractured thumb, Cricket South Africa announced on Thursday.

Pretorius is believed to have suffered the injury when he dropped a relatively straightforward catch at midwicket in the final T20 against India earlier this week. CSA chief medical officer Dr Shuaib Manjra has confirmed that the fracture, in his left thumb, will require surgery, and the 33-year-old has returned to South Africa for the operation.

Marco Jansen, the young all-rounder who has produced inspired performances at Test level, will replace Pretorius in the Proteas ODI squad that began a three-match series against India in Lucknow on Thursday, but the selectors are still mulling who will be the replacement in the actual World Cup squad.

The tall left-armer Jansen would add some menace and variety to the attack in Australia, but there are the death-bowling skills to consider as well, and Andile Phehlukwayo could get the nod as a more like-for-like replacement.

Both Phehlukwayo and Jansen were named as travelling reserves for the T20 World Cup.

The absence of Pretorius will rob the Proteas of another experienced campaigner, following Rassie van der Dussen’s withdrawal after breaking a finger in England.

Left-arm paceman Wayne Parnell is the other bowling all-rounder in the squad and, if there is swing about, he can be a dangerous wicket-taker, as well as usually having good skills at the death.

It may just amount to papering over the cracks, but Cricket South Africa are looking to meet the six SA20 franchises to discuss the fall-out from last week’s auction and get more clarity on why Proteas regulars Temba Bavuma and Andile Phehlukwayo were not bought by any of the teams.

Their omission, especially that of national T20 captain Bavuma, dominated South African cricket news, detracting from one of the most important events in the establishment of the new league as hopefully something that will enthral local fans.

Franchises like Sunrisers Eastern Cape, who are owned by the Sun Group who operate numerous Indian newspapers, TV and radio stations and so should understand the media fall-out, and Durban Super Giants chose top-order batsmen with inferior domestic records rather than Bavuma.

“It’s quite difficult because we agreed with the franchises that we would allow the bidding process to run independently,” CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki told The Citizen.

“But we were hugely disappointed, especially by the omission of Temba and Andile, that was quite a shock. We need to have a post-mortem to see how we can avoid this happening in the future.

“I am part of the SA20 board and I will be proposing a post-mortem with the franchises. It will be a discussion, not an interrogation. We can’t control how they go about picking their teams, but we just want to understand better why it happened.

“We will have earnest discussions with them and inform the public as well. We want the public’s buy-in for this tournament, so they need to be able to read and hear why certain players weren’t chosen,” Moseki said.

The first sign that things were heading south at the auction came when Sunrisers Eastern Cape bought Marques Ackerman in the 12^th round of bidding. The KZN Dolphins batsman has a strike-rate of 123.68 and an average of 24.25 in 39 domestic T20s, compared to Bavuma’s strike-rate of 124.67 and an average of 30.52 over 100 matches.

Ackerman’s base price was admittedly just R175 000, while Bavuma’s was R850 000, which was clearly set too high, either by himself or whoever advised him poorly. Moseki confirmed that “the Proteas players could choose their own reserve price, initially they were told to go at R850 000, but if they wanted to go lower then they could do that. It was not possible to lower their price during the auction though”.

“We will ask the franchises whether there was enough local input in their selections. We need a long-term plan to ensure this does not happen again, specifically when it comes to contracted Black players.

“It will be very sad if it happens again next year and we obviously need to plan better,” Moseki said.