The maudlin cries complaining that all our best talent goes overseas is something we are quite used to hearing in cricket and rugby and the issue has come to the fore again with Devon Conway’s spectacular debut for New Zealand’s impressive Black Caps cricket team and Springbok director of rugby Rassie Erasmus announcing a squad of which nearly 50% were based overseas.
Top sportspeople taking their skills elsewhere is one of the biggest challenges facing our administrators, but it is also a problem that the country faces as a whole in a wide range of fields. On the sporting side, there is not much cash-strapped Cricket South Africa nor SA Rugby can do about the major socio-economic issues that are driving emigration.
Erasmus has bemoaned the financial realities that mean it is just about impossible for SA Rugby to stop their leading players from taking lucrative contracts overseas; the Rand simply cannot compete. And appealing to professional sportspeople to consider the good of the game back home is a bit like pleading with a kid to eat their broccoli because it’s good for them.
But by choosing a Springbok squad to play the British and Irish Lions in which 22 of the 46 members are based overseas, Erasmus is in a way encouraging what he was complaining about. Local players see that squad packed with emigrants and must be thinking that heading off to Europe or Japan will be a fruitful endeavour.
And not just in terms of their wallets. This latest Springbok squad selection has almost sent a message that you are more likely to be picked if you are based overseas.
There are so many talents blossoming in South African domestic rugby at the moment – the likes of Ruan Nortje, Lizo Gqoboka, JD Schickerling and even the reinvented Cornal Hendricks – but it seems every time there was a 50/50 call, the selection went the way of the guy based overseas.
Erasmus has expressed his disappointment that there are so many of our players offshore, but favouring the exiles when it comes to selection is not going to help restrict the numbers departing.
The tacit statement behind the selection is that the standard of overseas rugby – even in Japan – is better than that of the South African domestic game, which is not a great admission for the director of rugby to make.
A 50% overseas Springbok team is also harder for the general South African public, the vast majority of whom do not have satellite TV, to relate to and support. How many rugby fans have actually seen Coenie Oosthuizen play lately? But most rugby fans will know that Gqoboka has been in rampaging form for the Bulls.
Ever since Apartheid was introduced to rip apart the fabric of our society, we have lost cricketers to overseas teams. The original outflux was to England, but lately there has been a surge of South African products playing for New Zealand.
Amazing as it might be for a country of five million people and more than 26 million sheep, New Zealand is not just the best producer of woollen products in the world, but they stand on the verge of being the best Test cricket team on the planet as well. That after falling just one run (or one boundary or one correct umpiring decision) short of winning the ODI World Cup.
So New Zealand certainly have a strong national cricket team at the moment. Which is ironic because there have been a pile of South African imports who couldn’t crack it here but have made it big on that island.
Left-arm quick Neil Wagner is the current enforcer of the bowling attack, BJ Watling is arguably the best Test wicketkeeper/batsman in the world (joining Kruger van Wyk and Glen Phillips as Saffers who have donned the gloves for the Black Caps), Colin Munro is a flashy white-ball player and no-one should need reminding of what Grant Elliott did to the Proteas in the 2015 World Cup semi-final.
Conway has now joined that list and his is an interesting tale. Having been a schoolboy prodigy, the Johannesburger went through hell just trying to establish himself as a franchise cricketer. In 21 four-day franchise games he could only average 21 and his white-ball averages are almost identical.
And then in 2017 he decided to make a fresh start halfway across the world and pow! Conway is now one of the most exciting newcomers to international cricket and his 200 against England on Test debut at Lord’s must be one of the finest performances in a first Test ever.
But blaming CSA for letting this late-blooming talent slip through their fingers is one of my pet hates. Sure, transformation priorities do lead to certain people being favoured when it comes to selection, but Conway was given every opportunity here but for some reason just could not perform well enough to become a household name.
He deserves nothing but praise though for how he has rejuvenated his career.
