Ken Borland

For cricket lovers, especially those who value the Test format above all others, the direction in which the sport seems to be heading, judging by the events of the last week, are enough to make you want to tear your hair out.

For many, the fact that the Proteas, who seem on the verge of entering a very exciting era in red-ball cricket, will play just 28 Tests in the next five years is infuriating and bordering on tragic at the same time. When one sees how fabulously Kagiso Rabada is bowling, how promising his fellow pacemen Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi and Marco Jansen look, as well as spin-king Keshav Maharaj, and one realises they will never get the chance to put up the same sort of numbers as lesser cricketers from England, India or Australia, then it is natural to feel great distress.

And then one seeks someone to blame for the damage they have done to something as loved and cherished as Test cricket.

Which just leads to more frustration because there are a multitude of players who have let down the game – the International Cricket Council, The Big Three, Cricket South Africa, all the different T20 franchise leagues, broadcasters, sponsors, and even us, the fans.

I am confident Test cricket will be played in heaven, where there will be infinite resources, but here on earth the game has to deal with finite amounts of time and money. Test cricket takes up the most time (part of its attraction for me), while T20 generates the most money.

When it comes to money, only The Big Three of India, England and Australia are financially secure and can carry on as normal, although their tendency to hog the calendar and the dollars amongst themselves does no good to the game as a whole, unless they are happy having just three countries playing at the top level.

For the rest, they are being squeezed into an intractable situation where they cannot afford to play bilateral cricket unless it is against one of the above trio, and they are also losing spots on the calendar and their top players to the T20 leagues that are, frankly, becoming an epidemic.

No matter how well the Proteas are doing, we have to realise that, however we try to dress up our cricket, we have become bit-part players in the global game. The fact that only Zimbabwe will play less international cricket over the next five years says it all.

Although the new administration are doing a good job in bringing stability to South African cricket, the failures of the previous boards and executive is now coming back to haunt them. Not only did they leave CSA with empty coffers, but we have little standing at the ICC. South African cricket is seen as insignificant players in the boardroom, their administrators inexperienced in the ruthless environment of the ICC.

One often wonders whether the ICC are there to look after the best interests of all the countries that play the game or are they just there to do the bidding of the three nations that dominate or monopolise the sport. On their own website, they say “the ICC governs and administrates the game and works with our members to grow the sport”.

Is that in just three countries or globally and surely governs implies a leadership role?

While fingers are rightfully pointed at the ICC for their lack of leadership in grappling with these complex issues, we, as fans, also need to look at ourselves.

South Africa’s reduced Test schedule was greeted with outrage and, as CSA chief executive Pholetsi Moseki has said, hopefully that hunger for more long-form cricket will translate into much-improved attendances at the stadiums.

So bring your families and show the powers-that-be and the broadcasters that Test cricket is still a much-loved product.

Recent surveys by Fica, the international body of players’ associations, show that the majority of players still regard Test cricket as the pinnacle.

Let’s all get behind that sentiment.

Kagiso Rabada was the leader of the Proteas with both bat and ball, his manful efforts keeping them in the game after they were bundled out for just 151 on the first day of the second Test against England at Old Trafford on Thursday.

That South Africa, who had won the toss and chosen to bat first, got as far as 151 was largely thanks to Rabada’s doughty innings of 36. He then once again led with the ball as he claimed the key wicket of Joe Root for just 9 as South Africa fought hard with the ball to restrict England to 111/3 at stumps.

As he has done previously, Proteas skipper Dean Elgar backed his batsmen to get through tough early conditions batting first under heavily overcast skies, wanting to bowl last because they have included a second frontline spinner in their XI in Simon Harmer and the pitch does look dry.

But with James Anderson (15-4-32-3) and Stuart Broad (11-1-37-3) leading the way with some wonderfully skilful bowling on a pitch that seamed extravagantly, the Proteas batting failed dismally, and they had crashed to 108/8 before Rabada top-scored and gave the innings the thinnest veneer of respectability.

The gutsy Anrich Nortje provided him with valuable support, scoring 10 in 51 minutes as they added 35 for the ninth wicket, the biggest partnership of the innings.

England were soon ill-placed themselves with the bat as they slipped to 43/3.

The skill and discipline in asking questions just outside off stump of Lungi Ngidi and Rabada took care of Alex Lees (4) and Root, Erwee this time hanging on to a juggling catch in the slips, while Nortje proved again that sheer pace is as valuable as myrrh as he blasted through Ollie Pope’s defences for 23 well-made runs.

But as happened in South Africa’s innings, once the ball lost its shine and became softer, so the movement off the pitch eased. The Proteas bowling also became a bit irregular, conceding 20 extras, and Jonny Bairstow played some marvellous strokes to reach 38 not out off just 45 balls at the close and position himself as the biggest threat on the second day.

Zak Crawley helped him add an unbeaten 68 for the fourth wicket, but the embattled opener was scratchy in scoring just 17 not out off 77 deliveries.

Quinton de Kock said after the third ODI between South Africa and England that it was “nice to get out in the middle and score some runs” in his trademark understated way, but given the hunger he showed to make it really count on Sunday, the fact that rain limited his fun to just 76 balls in 105 minutes would have frustrated the 29-year-old.

The left-hander made the most of his time at the crease though, overcoming a scratchy start against excellent English seam bowling to stroke a marvellous 92 not out before the match was washed out. It was his first major innings since his phenomenal 140 not out for the Lucknow Super Giants against the Kolkata Knight Riders on May 18 in his penultimate IPL game.

De Kock had only batted five more times since then, suffering a hand injury during the Proteas’ T20 series in India, so he was eager to make his mark at Headingley.

“It was obviously nice to get out there and score some runs, spend some time in the middle after time away from the game,” De Kock said after the series was shared 1-1 with world champions England.

“The pitch was providing a bit of swing and movement, so I just had to soak up the pressure at first, 50 overs is a long time, and make sure I remained strong in my positions.

“I wanted to make sure I had a strong defence and put away the bad balls, while keeping the ball on the ground for as long as possible. That was the game-plan.

“It was tricky facing three left-arm seamers swinging it around. But we thought that might happen in this series, so we did our prep to make sure we weren’t caught off-guard,” De Kock said.

The three-match series did provide at least one unexpected outcome, with star England all-rounder Ben Stokes’s decision to join the growing number of players who have retired from a format of the game catching many off-guard.

De Kock himself is strictly a white-ball player these days, and pleasingly is still clearly a top-class practitioner who makes batting look so easy on days like Sunday. Part of his secret is that he does not overcomplicate things and he said how much cricket players should be willing to play is purely a personal decision.

“It is starting to be tough for those players who play in all three formats, that is a lot of cricket and there are even more games now over the calendar year,” De Kock said.

“It’s an individual decision, if you feel you can do it then I’m happy for you, but others have taken it into their own hands. It’s a personal decision.

“If you’re still young then I think you should still play in all three formats. But as you get older, the body doesn’t co-operate as much. It’s just about managing things to prolong our careers.

“But there are still World Cups I want to play in and win, I still have a lot to play for. I always try to make an impact, that’s what we’re here to do, no matter how many formats you play,” De Kock said.

South Africa’s bombshell decision to pull out of their ODIs in Australia next January, thereby harming their chances of qualifying automatically for the World Cup, have exposed not only the adverse financial situation CSA find themselves in, but also their obsession and the massive gamble they are taking in trying to get a T20 franchise league off the ground.

By forfeiting three ODIs against Australia, the Proteas will miss out on a possible 30 points that could have lifted them from their lowly current position of 11^th on the World Cup Super League qualifying table into the top eight and an automatic place in the showpiece 50-over tournament.

The reason CSA have given for taking such a drastic step is that their new T20 franchise league they are launching next January is their priority and they feel they have to have their Proteas available for the new tournament.

Not many people realise, but it was South Africa who first played T20 cricket at a senior, interprovincial level. Back in 2002, SuperSport and Discovery combined for a knockout 20-over tournament featuring Western Province, Northerns and KZN, and one other invited team, that sent the winners on a trip to an exotic destination as a prize.

South Africa were also amongst the first to stage a formal domestic T20 tournament, in 2004 as part of the switch to the franchise system.

While T20 was not initially taken very seriously at international level, after South Africa hosted the first T20 World Cup in 2007, the format’s popularity quickly spread through all levels of the cricketing world.

India won that inaugural World Cup, beating Pakistan in a thrilling final at the Wanderers, and the most cricket-mad country in the world’s love affair with T20 began. The Indian Premier League, the most lucrative of all cricket events, began in 2008.

The 2009 IPL was hosted by South Africa due to security concerns surrounding India’s general election. And that is when the adverse effects T20 has had on the running of cricket in this country began to rear their ugly head.

For CSA, T20 has been a bit like The One Ring in J.R.R. Tolkien’s classic, The Lord of the Rings. The ring forged by the dark lord Sauron has the ability to provide great power, but it also corrupts even the most well-intentioned.

Following their hosting of the IPL, CSA became embroiled in the Bonus Scandal that cost CEO Gerald Majola and several high-ranking administrators their jobs.

The T20 Global League, the brainchild of Haroon Lorgat, who succeeded Majola as CSA’s chief executive, was meant to get off the ground in 2017 and then in 2018, but it was embroiled in controversy over broadcast rights. Lorgat was fired by the Cricket Capturers who then plunged CSA into its biggest ever crisis, and the reason why the organisation was, six months ago, apparently a year away from Day Zero – when they could no longer pay the players.

The engineers of that ‘coup’ then launched the Mzansi Super League, which was played in 2018 and 2019 but was never financially sustainable because the broadcast rights – where most of the income should be derived – were given to the SABC for free.

And now CSA have a new Precious. There is another T20 domestic franchise league on the table, waiting to be launched. Whether this will be another poisoned chalice or a belated success story remains to be seen.

On the positive side, what toppled the previous attempts – the lack of broadcast income – has been resolved by SuperSport coming on board and being a 30% stakeholder in the event.

As far as the Proteas are concerned, there is disappointment that they won’t be playing the ODIs in Australia and they are upset over the 30 qualifying points lost. But unlike last October when CSA made a unilateral decision that the players must take a knee for Black Lives Matter, this time the team were consulted and they understand the financial priorities at play.

Apart from having all our own stars involved, big-name overseas players such as Jos Buttler and Liam Livingstone are being courted to play in the league. But it’s not as if there’s no competition for their signatures: The Big Bash League starts in Australia in December and the Emirates Cricket Board are launching their own new T20 league in January 2023 as well.

CSA are reportedly allowing each of the six teams in their league a U.S.$1.5 million salary bill, but the UAE are apparently going to match that and their players will only have to pay 2% tax, compared to the 15% withholding tax in South Africa.

CSA have three main income streams: broadcast rights, sponsorships and ICC disbursements.

While not qualifying for the 50-over World Cup would mean missing out on a substantial amount of U.S. dollars, broadcast rights only really bring in the millions CSA require when they host one of the Big Three, especially India.

And, thanks to the aforementioned CSA ‘coup’ in 2018, sponsors have also largely fled the coop.

So one can understand CSA’s desperation to find some way to keep the lights on at their Melrose Estate offices. And by extension the 15 provinces, which cost CSA R250 million a year to look after.

More countries are likely to pull out of bilateral commitments, and even risk their participation in ICC events, because of cricket’s skewed financial model.

It is time the International Cricket Council, as the mother body of the game, took serious steps to look after all their children and not just India, England and Australia. A failure to ensure a level playing field will lead to the demise of international cricket.