Ken Borland

There is no honour amongst thieves, so the saying goes, and it seems there is also no end to the greed and selfishness that characterises international cricket. Little wonder then that even The Big Three are starting to box each other, never mind their deplorable treatment of the rest of the cricketing world.

The Covid-19 pandemic and the associated quarantine protocols have given teams an easy excuse not to fulfill their commitments. England’s disgraceful exit from their tour of South Africa last summer was the first sign that The Big Three would not be beholden to anyone, not even the International Cricket Council, when it came to their board or players doing whatever they wanted.

Australia also refused to come to South Africa when the science actually showed their reasons were totally flawed, and India recently did the dirty on England by pulling out of the last Test of their series on the morning of the game due to a couple of positive Covid tests in their tour party.

Never mind that the Indians were probably to blame because they had been out of the bubble attending coach Ravi Shastri’s book launch and what not.

Poor old Pakistan have the added disadvantage of always having the ‘security risk’ tag hanging over their heads and both New Zealand and England have unilaterally pulled out of tours there. They say it’s because of security threats but they have never informed their hosts exactly what those threats were, and it is telling that Britain’s own High Commission in Islamabad supported their tour going ahead.

And let’s not forget that Pakistan toured England last year, staying in crappy hotel bubbles, at the height of Covid when their hosts were desperate for cricket.

Now even the Ashes are at risk because the English players don’t want strict quarantine rules to apply to them and their families in Australia.

It has all just led to a great diminishing of the image of international cricket. The pre-eminence of country-versus-country contests no longer seems to be in place and the ICC, the very custodians of international cricket, don’t seem overly invested in protecting their turf.

Of course, the Indian Premier League towers over all other cricket like the Drakensberg peaks tower over the surrounding midlands. No player ever pulls out of that tournament and every single recent change to the international schedule has benefited the IPL. If the Indian players had played that last Test against England, some of them would have missed the first game of the resumed tournament in the UAE due to quarantine arrangements. And many of the same players who were terrified of Covid in South Africa quite happily went to India when the pandemic was killing thousands of people every day.

The ICC should be like an Alsatian in being the guardians of international cricket, instead they are a lap dog for The Big Three. The consequences of this will be T20 tournaments continuing to ransack the calendar space and the players that should be available to international competition.

If all this double-crossing and use-and-abuse treatment of the poorer nations is allowed to continue, I can see franchise cricket overwhelming the international game. The ICC will limp along as a toothless body holding world cups every few years.

Lovers of T20 will be delighted as that format will dominate the calendar even more, but traditional cricket fans, especially lovers of the Test game, will be left angry and disinterested.

At the moment, those with the power in cricket all seem to just want to chow down at the banquet table without any consideration for those who produce or serve the feast. It is this greed and selfishness that is destroying the game.

Unless there is a sea-change in mindset and cricket gets some non-selfserving leadership in place, it will be a case of bad luck to the poorer nations as the rich get richer and the rest simply fade away.

Nothing damages a relationship more than dishonesty and Cricket South Africa should bear that in mind when it comes to their relationship with Proteas fans, who have already had to put up with so much.

The selection of world cup squads has always been controversial simply because everyone has their own favourite cricketers who they believe should be in the team. But the announcement this week of the squad for the T20 World Cup in the United Arab Emirates next month has caused uproar because CSA have taken their fans to be fools.

George Linde, who has played in 14 of South Africa’s last 18 T20 Internationals – and done really well, was omitted from the squad of 15. The two orthodox left-arm spinners chosen, Bjorn Fortuin and Keshav Maharaj, have played just six and zero matches respectively over the same period. Linde is also the best batsman of the three.

Convenor of selectors Victor Mpitsang struggled to provide cogent reasons for why Linde, who has taken 15 wickets and has an economy rate of just 7.08, has suddenly been leapfrogged and I have yet to see any valid cricketing reasons put forward for the decision.

The elephant in the room – as it always seems to be – is quotas. For at least the last decade, no Proteas squad has gone to a World Cup with less than seven Black players. Which is the exact number chosen this time around too. Where the public was taken for fools was when Mpitsang said “there just happens to be seven players of colour” and when director of cricket Graeme Smith said “no policy was given to the selection panel”.

I get that the likes of Smith, Mpitsang, coach Mark Boucher and captain Temba Bavuma are caught between a rock and a hard place. Do they acknowledge that there is a quota to meet and risk undermining any fragile psyches amongst the players or do they pretend like nothing’s going on and alienate the public?

CSA’s new board need to be honest and come out and say what is more important for them: Ensuring the Proteas tick certain boxes when it comes to demographics or ensuring the very best combinations can go out and be competitive on the ruthless international stage.

Of course transformation and winning are not mutually exclusive – the Springboks have shown that. But when it comes to selecting between someone who has spent the last year meeting all expectations in his role or another player who has always been behind him in the pecking order, the colour of skin really should not come into it.

As much as some people want to ignore quotas, they are there. Denial is not going to stop that realisation seeping into the changeroom either.

After the Proteas lost the ODI series against Sri Lanka, what do you think the first question was in the post-match press conference with Boucher? Was it about the failure of the batting line-up or whether two seam-bowling all-rounders was the right selection?

It was neither.

“Are you happy with the balance of the side in terms of transformation?” was the first question. If the most pressing issue for the media is that only five players of colour were selected, including just two Black Africans (Bavuma and Lungi Ngidi were both unavailable), then why can’t CSA just be honest about quotas?

The CSA Board hire people to do a cricketing job but then also expect them to ensure political objectives are met, without ever talking about those ‘targets’. (What a euphemism that is as Ashwell Prince found out when he missed his ‘target’ once as Cape Cobras coach and was immediately hauled before a disciplinary hearing).

Just in case there is any doubt, I am a huge Maharaj fan and his T20 debut is overdue, plus he provides valuable leadership to the squad. I am also a Fortuin fan, but it is going to be hard on him to replicate Linde’s role at a World Cup given how few T20 Internationals he has had the opportunity to play in.

Ensuring the Proteas can dominate in spin-friendly conditions and creating an environment of inclusivity within the squad are the two goals that have been occupying captain Temba Bavuma’s mind ahead of the South African cricket team’s departure for Sri Lanka on Wednesday.

The Proteas will play three ODIs and three T20s, all at the Premadasa Stadium in Colombo. Sri Lanka also hosted India for three matches in each white-ball format last month at the same venue and spinners took 23 of the 37 wickets claimed by the home side.

“We had a look at that series to see what we will probably come up against and experience is on our side because a lot of the team have been to Sri Lanka before. We expect conditions to be in their favour, suiting the spinners, and Sri Lanka are a very strong outfit in their own conditions. So it’s going to be tough and our challenge is to be successful in those conditions.

“I definitely have a lot of confidence in our spinners – Tabraiz Shamsi is top of the T20 rankings and flying high on confidence, we know what quality Keshav Maharaj brings and we also have Bjorn Fortuin and George Linde. I believe we can be more than competitive, we can dominate. Our bowling group has been stretched and they adapted, now it’s the batsmen who will be put into a space that tests their skills,” Bavuma said on Monday.

The Proteas confirmed on Monday that paceman Junior Dala and bowling coach Charl Langeveldt are both still quarantining after testing positive for Covid two weeks ago and will not tour Sri Lanka. They have been replaced by Lutho Sipamla and Titans coach Mandla Mashimbyi.

In the four weeks that the Proteas have been home after the Ireland tour, the Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings have dominated the cricket discourse, and Bavuma said the team have kept a keen eye on the revelations and are eager to ensure they do not repeat the mistakes of the past.

“Most of what has been spoken about in the SJN has been thrown around the team with passion. We welcome the initiative, it is necessary and we want to learn from those experiences and mistakes. We’ve had informal conversations and everyone is positive. We have the opportunity to shape our team the way we like, so that down the line no-one can say the same mistakes happened.

“I’d be lying if I said the testimony has not had an impact because some members of the squad have been named. Our coach, Mark Boucher, has addressed us as a team and provided clarity and context, he has kept the guys in his confidence. For me, the biggest take from SJN is to create an environment that allows for a strong sense of belonging and acceptance,” Bavuma said.

The recently-appointed Proteas white-ball captain has been adventurous in pushing his team into potentially uncomfortable places, which must partly be because he feels comfortable in that space.

“The squad in 2021 is very different to what it was like in the early 2000s, guys walk into the team now and feel a lot more comfortable. It was no big struggle for me when I walked in in 2014. I really like to think things are different now and it starts with hard conversations, putting each other in uncomfortable positions to find a better way forward,” Bavuma said.

Covid-19 has dealt South African sports fans a cruel deck of cards, never mind a hand, with the much-anticipated British and Irish Lions rugby tour now almost certainly not happening in this country this year. But there is still something to look forward to with the Rugby World Cup Sevens coming to Cape Town next year.

Megapro, who are the giants of commercial rights and sponsorship sales in South African sport, were appointed as the exclusive sponsorship sales agency by WorldRugby earlier this month and they are busy ensuring they lay on a feast of entertainment. The overriding hope, of course, is that the pandemic has eased to such an extent by September next year that sport would have returned to normal with spectators cramming into the wonderful Cape Town Stadium.

It is reassuring to know that it is a former Sevens Springbok, Steven Hunt, who is spearheading this drive as the sales manager of Megapro.

“It’s a waiting game still for the Lions tour, which is sad because it only comes around every 12 years and we could miss out on the enormous benefits it brings to the country. But the light at the end of the tunnel is the Sevens World Cup next year and there is great excitement around that. Everyone wants to see sport return to normality and the hype of a big event.

“At the moment, putting on big sporting events is weighed down with challenges, but a world cup unites the country and to lose that feel-good factor is the major loss we are currently having. But it’s good to see the professional set-ups moving again, it shows why keeping sport going is so important. The Sevens World Cup could have a very similar impact to the Lions tour,” Hunt told me in their Bryanston offices this week.

High performance sport is like a fire that needs oxygen in order to burn, it needs spectators in order to oxidise and catch alight.

“Professional sport needs spectators, both for the commercial aspects and for the players themselves. It never happened to me in my career that we ever played with no crowds, but it affects the whole life cycle of the game. And Sevens is all about the fans and the fan engagements, the festivities and fun. The whole event lives on that energy.

“Obviously the positive about this Lockdown is that the supporters can’t wait to come back to live events and hopefully they come back stronger. We’re 100% expecting the crowds for rugby to come back bigger, better and stronger. There is still massive value in playing the tournament in an empty stadium though because we will still be putting it in front of the world,” Hunt said.

South African rugby was on an absolute high when Covid struck, having just won the XVs World Cup in sensational fashion in Japan, but now they are in a fight for survival. How long this ‘state of emergency’ for SA Rugby lasts is anyone’s guess because government is ill-equipped to provide many answers or an efficient vaccination programme.

“It’s terrible that the great momentum of the 2019 World Cup has been lost. SA Rugby pushes for answers about when fans can return but there are still none – the numbers could still go up, we just don’t know. And it boils down to WorldRugby whether there will be no spectators or not at the World Cup. Fortunately we have the Cape Town Sevens this year as the last event on the circuit and we can gauge a lot from that.

“The Cape Town Sevens has set massively high standards as an event so we will stick to that formula, keep how that is structured. SA Rugby also had success with the event in George and Port Elizabeth, so the World Cup is in good hands. It’s also the first global event that we have the exclusive rights for, so it is massive for Megapro. It will be a huge success, a top-class tournament, as long as there is no more Covid,” Hunt predicted.

South African rugby may miss out on the British and Irish Lions tour, but hosting the Rugby World Cup Sevens with international spectators will be like getting a kitten for Christmas.