Ken Borland

Proteas coach Mark Boucher says the team has found a new vision and identity for themselves and also a new way of playing that will hopefully bring greater success as a rebuilding side looks to regain their glory days.

The South African cricket team’s Culture Camp at Skukuza last month not only dealt with wrongs of the past, especially those that involved racial discrimination, but also plotted a way ahead for the future. #ProteaFire, the mantra of the team that went to number one in all three formats with Boucher as a player, has now officially been extinguished, replaced by three watchwords: Belonging; Empathy; Respect.

“One of the biggest changes came in terms of #ProteaFire, which gave us direction and the values to become the number one side, especially when under pressure. But none of those guys are playing anymore and we have outgrown that, it’s an outdated identity. Maybe it became too commercialised, it ended up just being on paper and the guys no longer live it.

“There are more cultures in the team now and it was time those came through. It’s important for a new team to create a new identity and that’s exactly what we got – a new set of values. It will start with how we play and the players chose the same route that myself and Enoch Nkwe [assistant coach] wanted, everything aligned without us really trying. It’s also about how new guys coming into the team must feel and management did not choose the vision, the players did,” Boucher said in an audio interview released by Cricket South Africa on Monday.

Boucher said the Culture Camp also gave the larger group of players from which the Proteas will draw the opportunity to talk about their pet peeves and he found the revelations to be eye-opening.

“We all come from different backgrounds and have been brought up in different ways, and we must understand our shortfalls in the past. We can’t turn a blind eye, we must acknowledge them, that’s empathy, which is a big word for us. We need to use our four or five different cultures to our advantage and I came out of the camp with a completely different understanding.

“I educated myself, I found it quite fascinating, things I have never thought about before. The camp opened my eyes in a massive way and I would encourage people to get out there and try and understand the feelings of different races. Now the best thing for the game would be for our biggest assets – the players – to be able to take over the headlines for good things, let the game do the talking rather than the other things that have been hogging the headlines,” Boucher said.

While Neil McKenzie will return to South African cricket as a batting coach, the appointment of Malibongwe Maketa and Shukri Conrad as the chief breeders of talent for the Proteas will arguably have an even greater effect as director of cricket Graeme Smith announced his high performance management team on Thursday.

McKenzie, who played 58 Tests and 64 ODIs for the Proteas, is the new batting lead and while this means he will replace Jacques Kallis as the batting consultant for the national team, his appointment is a full-time one and he will work with batsmen at all levels of the pipeline.

Conrad, as the new SA U19 men’s lead, and Maketa, who is now the full-time South Africa A and National Academy lead, have been given key roles in that pipeline.

Maketa was a Proteas assistant coach from 2017-2019 as well as enjoying a successful time in charge of the Eastern Cape Warriors, so the 39-year-old knows exactly what is required for talented cricketers to progress through the system. He told The Citizen on Thursday that he sees himself as the go-between for the Proteas management and the franchise coaches.

“They are two very important roles and fortunately I’ll have a lot of highly qualified coaches around me as we try to prepare cricketers for both the franchises and the Proteas. The Academy is there to empower the players with skills and I will be assisting them with their game-plans and execution. It’s great to be back in a full-time role with Cricket South Africa.

“I’ll be looking to assist Mark Boucher and Enoch Nkwe in creating a bigger base for the Proteas and my contract runs concurrently with their’s. It’s also about monitoring and identifying talent and lending a hand to the franchise coaches, making sure we are all speaking the same language, from Graeme, Mark and Enoch to the franchises. I intend to get my hands dirty and throw lots of balls,” Maketa said.

Conrad, a vastly-experienced coach who has been heading up the National Academy, will now take over the crucial U19 programme.

“I’ve loved every minute of it at the academy and I know what is required to get to those levels as I now get involved earlier in the pipeline. The U19s are a great challenge because it is such an important stage in development and South African cricket as a whole. The challenge is to ensure we give every young cricketer every opportunity to play and perform.

“Excellence in coaching is critical at provincial and school level, and schools have a massive role to play. I would like to work together with them, private coaches and the Hubs and RPC coaches because we have been in our silos for far too long. Plus we have a scouting system and a wonderful database run by John Bailey and Niels Momberg to ensure nobody falls through the cracks,” Conrad said.

Other appointments confirmed on Thursday were those of Eddie Khoza as the Acting Head of Cricket Pathways, Vincent Barnes as the High-Performance Bowling Lead, Dinesha Devnarain as the Women’s SA U19 and National Academy Head Coach, and Dr Shuaib Manjra as the Chief Medical Officer. Follwing the rather dilly stink created over the appointment of certain consultants, these announcements should be sweet-smelling for the majority of SA cricket fans. They all have considerable amounts to add to the high performance programme.

Cricket South Africa on Thursday officially parted ways with their chief executive Thabang Moroe, announcing that he has been fired with immediate effect for serious misconduct, but the size of his misdemeanours is only likely to be revealed in the coming months as the dismissed administrator’s legal team have already indicated they will fight his axing in court.

CSA’s brief statement on Thursday said the “decision was based on expert external legal opinion supported by the findings emanating from an independent forensic investigation” but they gave no details of what exactly Moroe had done wrong. And the CSA Board have already rebuffed requests for the forensic report to be made public, including from their own Members Council, which is scheduled to elect a new Board on September 5.

Many believe the report implicates the Board in many of the things Moroe has been punished for, a perception his legal team have supported.

At the time of his suspension, way back in December, Moroe had presided over a huge deterioration in CSA’s relationships with key stakeholders such as the players’ union, sponsors and media. He was also accused of excessive credit card spending and procurement irregularities.

The forensic investigators, Fundudzi Forensic Services, interviewed a range of stakeholders before submitting their report in May, since when CSA have supplied numerous different excuses for not finalising the matter more timeously.

Tellingly, Moroe did not avail himself of the opportunity to be interviewed by Fundudzi, a point CSA were quick to highlight in their statement on Thursday.

“Mr Thabang Moroe was offered sufficient opportunity to provide representations to the independent forensic auditors and to the Board regarding the allegations of misconduct, which opportunity he failed and/or refused to utilise,” the statement read.

Moroe’s legal team are likely to include this in any legal action they take, given that they also targeted the chairperson overseeing his disciplinary hearing, demanding that they be replaced by an independent figure.

As much as the CSA Board may now believe the Moroe matter is done and dusted, there are numerous parties who are determined to ensure the forensic report is made public, and the axed CEO will certainly be using it in his defence. The behaviour of the CSA Board will then be in the spotlight.

Nollis Marais and Pine Pienaar are old friends who have been up and down the Bulls’ coaching structures ever since they arrived at Loftus Versfeld in 2011, but now they have been reunited on the SuperRugby coaching team as director of rugby Jake White announced his overhaul of the senior staff on Wednesday.

Marais was the Bulls’ head coach in 2016-17, a period marked by poor results and an even worse working relationship with high performance manager Xander Janse van Rensburg, who has subsequently been investigated for fraud and corruption. Marais was demoted when John Mitchell arrived at Loftus, but White has now elevated the man with probably the best junior rugby record in the country to the new position of dedicated breakdown specialist for the Bulls SuperRugby team and all sides representing the union.

Pienaar has been the Bulls’ defence coach but has now been shifted to the role of technical advisor, with Joey Mongalo, a former Bulls Currie Cup player, taking up the defence role he fulfilled at the Lions under both Johan Ackermann and Swys de Bruin.

“Teams have always had consultants or forwards coaches addressing the breakdown as part of their broader roles. This will become a key focus area for us going forward, especially with the breakdown laws being changed.

“It also speaks to the type of rugby we will be looking to play. Nollis has been around the block and knows exactly what we need. I have no doubt that he is the perfect man for this job,” White said in a statement released by the Bulls on Wednesday.

White had previously announced the appointment of Russell Winter, formerly with the Lions and Stormers as the forwards coach, and former Springbok flyhalf Chris Rossouw will continue as backline coach.

The Bulls have released Daan Human, who helped turn Lizo Gqoboka and Trevor Nyakane into one of the best propping pairs in SuperRugby last year, to the Springboks and White said a new scrum coach would be announced “in the near future”.

CJ van der Linde, who played 75 Tests for South Africa and was a member of White’s 2007 World Cup winning Springbok squad, and subsequently coached with him at Montpellier, is favoured to replace Human.

In the last week the Bulls have also boosted their playing resources by confirming the return of Springbok wing Travis Ismaiel and the signing of talented youngsters in former Western Province hooker Schalk Erasmus and Walt Steenkamp, a 2.03m, 121kg lock who has played for both the North-West Leopards and the Free State Cheetahs.