Ken Borland

Now that the painful Test series in Australia is over, the critics no longer need to sit in their chairs in front of the TV in the early hours of the morning and jeer the Proteas, and the anticipated extravaganza that the SA20 will be should distract attention anyway.

But one hopes what transpired in Australia is not forgotten, lost in the hurly-burly of the new T20 league and just the sheer volume of cricket and sport that constantly competes for attention. Let’s not forget that the Proteas also spent October and November in Australia, playing in the T20 World Cup, where they bowed out at the hands of minnows the Netherlands. The anger over that fiasco may have died down a bit, but the promise of a full review by Cricket South Africa has not been forgotten. The outcome of that review and the rebuilding strategies decided upon are now overdue.

The responsibility for making sure lessons are learnt from the 2-0 hiding (it surely would have been 3-0 but for rain) lies with the administrators, who now have the opportunity to ensure something good comes out of the ruins.

The current team and their coaches, plus the former players working as commentators in Australia, have all pinpointed the amount of domestic first-class cricket, as well as the standard, as being the main cause of the woeful performances of the Proteas lately. So that is surely where CSA need to start their autopsy.

CSA’s current executives inherited a house that was in drastic need of renovation and Proteas fans need to realise that there are no quick fixes at international level. But that is no excuse for inaction and CSA need to come up with definite plans that have the health of the Proteas – still by far their greatest source of income – as the greatest priority.

It is all very well if the next month is spent admiring the dazzling front garden of the house that is the SA20, but the fire that is raging in the kitchen needs some attention too.

South Africa were heading for a painful defeat on the second day of the first Test against Australia at the Gabba in Brisbane on Sunday as they were bundled out for just 99 in their second innings, leaving the home team with just 34 runs to get to go 1-0 up in the three-match series.

Having done well with the ball to bowl Australia out for 218 and restrict their lead to 66, the Proteas folded again with the bat as they staggered to 66 for seven at tea, all square but with just three wickets left in a second innings that started five overs before lunch.

And South Africa were already in trouble by lunch as they crashed to 3 for two, Dean Elgar being trapped lbw for 2 by Pat Cummins and Rassie van der Dussen being bowled for a duck by a snorter from Mitchell Starc, angling across the right-hander and then seaming back through the gate.

Sarel Erwee (3) was heading back to the changeroom three overs after lunch as Cameron Green took another superb catch in the gully, the left-handed Erwee not being able to withdraw his bat in time from a Cummins lifter.

From a parlous 5 for three, Temba Bavuma and Khaya Zondo did their best to rescue the South African innings as they added 42 for the fourth wicket. Despite the desperate situation, the pair tried to be positive and took whatever scoring chances they could.

The introduction of Nathan Lyon brought the breakthrough though as the off-spinner trapped Bavuma lbw, a big-turning delivery also keeping low to catch the batsman on the back foot. Bavuma had again batted stoutly, scoring 29.

Scott Boland’s accurate seam bowling, targeting the top of off-stump, then removed Kyle Verreynne and Marco Jansen for ducks in the next over as South Africa crashed to 49 for six.

Keshav Maharaj scored 16 before he was caught behind off another superb delivery from Starc in the penultimate over before tea.

Zondo stuck around to the end of the innings, scoring a defiant 36 not out, while Cummins ended with five for 42 in 12.4 overs.

South Africa had appeared to have bowled themselves back into the match when they reduced Australia from 181 for five to 218 all out.

The Proteas had actually started the day poorly with the ball, Australia resuming on 145 for five and adding 36 runs in the first six overs.

But left-armer Marco Jansen then entered the attack and had Green (18) caught in the slips, Erwee snaffling a rebound, and, two balls later, had Travis Head caught behind.

Head had moved smoothly to 92 off 96 balls and his brilliant innings was as much of a hammer blow to the Proteas as the Australian bowling.

Kagiso Rabada (17.3-1-76-4) then wrapped up the tail with the help of Lungi Ngidi, who took a superb return catch to dismiss Starc for 14.

South Africa would have been optimistic about fighting their way back into the match with the bat, but sports’ wonderful ability to provide drama once again came to the fore, helped by some soft moments by the Proteas batsmen.

The Springboks’ humiliating defeat in Durban last weekend was a painful reminder of the gulf in quality that exists between the administration and structure of the game in New Zealand and back here in South Africa, with All Blacks coach Steve Hansen making sure to mention the decision-makers in their rugby when he was asked for the reasons behind their world record equalling run of 17 successive wins.

A solid structure from schoolboys to the Springboks is what is needed for our rugby to remain amongst the best in the world, not yet another overhaul of the national team and their coaches; that’s just treating the symptom, shuffling people around, and does not address the root cause of our problems.

And, as great as next week’s Rugby Indaba sounds – except for the unfortunate two coaches who have their preparations for the Currie Cup final disrupted (another example of Saru’s awful treatment of their flagship competition) – it’s not going to address our real problems either. There might be some good ideas about game plans and what-not, but the coaches and the franchise CEOs do not have the power to change the structural failings in rugby, that lies with the South African Rugby Union and their turkeys who will steadfastly not vote for Christmas.

Below the national sides, there should just be six teams playing fully professional rugby based in the major cities of Johannesburg, Cape Town, Durban, Pretoria, Port Elizabeth and Bloemfontein. And those six unions should have the power in South African rugby, not the eight lesser unions, largely amateurish and as relevant as dinosaurs, which are currently the tail that wags the dog.

Below that, all 14 unions can have semi-professional teams, but the amount of money that can be saved by only having six fully professional teams and by eight economically unviable organisations no longer drawing over R20 million a year in Saru grants could go a long way towards keeping our players in the country.

Just like in New Zealand, talented rugby players must fight for a limited number of professional contracts through their performances at club level, that lead to them playing for their provinces and then being chosen for a Super Rugby deal.

The vast majority of schoolboy players in New Zealand don’t become professional rugby players when they finish their education. They go to university and play rugby there, or play for their local club side while working, which is why so many All Blacks have had interesting occupations like lumberjack, piano mover or, as in the case of Aaron Smith, apprentice hairdresser.

It’s a system that builds character and ensures only the fittest and hungriest players survive to reach the top.

Good schoolboy players in South Africa should be lauded in their school hall and with selection for provincial and national schoolboy teams; not with professional contracts and way too much exposure on television.

There is far too great an emphasis on schoolboy rugby in South Africa and that just creates entitled, spoilt players, wastes a lot of late-developing talent, kills our clubs and also gets in the way of transformation in many cases.

This is not to say that our current Springboks and their management are beyond blame. The All Blacks have a relentless drive to improve on and off the field every day, they see every challenge as a means of getting better.

Do our Springboks and their coaching staff have that same hunger? The same desire to do whatever it takes? Because it will also come down to that if they are going to close the gap with the All Blacks.

Any top professional sportsman worth his salt would turn a record 57-15 hammering at home into motivation to lift their conditioning and skills to new levels.

The South African cricket team has just completed an historic 5-0 series whitewash of world champions Australia, with captain Faf du Plessis saying a culture camp they held before the start of the summer has ensured that they are now playing as a team again and, most importantly, are really challenging each other to be better.

Now that’s the sort of indaba that could be useful for our rugby players and coaches, but the administrators still need to make the major, unselfish changes that will really benefit the game in this country.

It is now one month since South Africa’s painful World Cup exit and a range of questions still remain despite Cricket South Africa’s defiant dead-batting of any suggestions there was interference in the selection of the team for that semi-final against New Zealand.

Fresh questions have sprung up like: Why would Mike Horn say things like “It doesn’t matter how politics or the quota influenced the players” and “Now we need to fill gaps, now we have to make the difference with less but give more,” if there hadn’t been any interference?

If three players of colour was sufficient for half the games the Proteas played at the World Cup, including the quarterfinal, why would that not be the case for the semi-final?

Why do CSA not understand how Aaron Phangiso not playing a single game at the World Cup is a disaster for transformation?

And, perhaps most tellingly, if there was no interference, why hasn’t a single player stood up and told the media to leave the whole selection saga in the past?

The players are understandably reticent to break out of the corral and speak openly about what happened on tour because there have been precedents before where players have been victimised or punished either openly or behind the scenes for speaking out of turn.

But all is clearly not well in South African cricket, even if CSA still want to live in la-la land with investigations conducted by their own directors and statements that are playing with semantics. Six months after the launch of the #ProteaFire campaign, the public trust in our cricket administrators is back to the minimal levels of 2009-2012 during the Gerald Majola bonus scandal.

Their rapid investigation last week immediately reminded me of former CSA acting president AK Khan’s investigation which cleared Majola of any serious wrongdoing, but which was subsequently described as a “cover-up” by the Nicholson Inquiry.

Team unity is often a fragile thing after the bitter disappointment of defeat, but it is clear that the players believe there was interference, it is they who have been driving the rumours as the media speak to people once-removed from the side. Even this week, I had fresh corroboration of the interference from someone, intimately involved in cricket, who had spoken to one of the players of colour in the team.

In order for our national team to bloom as they move forward into fresh challenges, this selection issue needs to be dealt with in a manner that satisfies not just the CSA board, but also the players and the stakeholders of the game – the public.

Personally, I believe the first step in achieving this is for captain AB de Villiers – the only player who really knows what happened in the selection meeting – to speak out and reveal what the truth is from his eyes.

De Villiers will not be the first captain who didn’t get his preferred team – rightly so because selection panels are there to balance out the views of the skipper to avoid the risk of cliques developing in the side – but as South Africa’s finest cricketer, he is in the unique position of being able to speak out because surely not even the CSA board would dare to punish him for honesty?

It would not be the first time there has been interference in selection – the cases of Jacques Rudolph and Charl Langeveldt readily spring to mind – but it would also not be the first time there has been a misunderstanding between the captain and the selectors.

There have also been suggestions that the Proteas are reacting to their own poor performance by making a controversial selection the scapegoat.

Whatever the case, the responsibility now rests on De Villiers, as the leader of the team, to lance South African cricket’s festering boil as soon as possible.