South Africa got it wrong in the quarter-final against the West Indies, but on the public relations front they got it right every time
CRICKET: Mark Lamport-Stokes
SOUTH AFRICA may have suffered the extreme disappointment of exiting stage left from cricket’s World Cup after their quarter-final defeat against a resurgent West Indies in Karachi on Monday, But where they certainly emerged as winners out of all 12 competing countries was in the public relations arena.
Hansie Cronje and his team created a high- profile image while in Pakistan for the World Cup and the people of that country took them warmly to their hearts.
South Africa were perhaps fortunate to play all their group matches in just the one country while the likes of Sri Lanka criss- crossed the sub-continent like a cricketing yoyo, but they did everything just right as far as people-relations were concerned.
After their own national team, who it would appear from countless newspaper articles in Karachi and Lahore, had effectively committed treason in losing to India in their powder-keg quarter-final, Pakistanis were right behind South Africa to go all the way in the World Cup.
Not for them the likes of gutless Australia who had refused to play their Group A match against Sri Lanka because of the bomb attack on January 31 which killed over 30 people in Colombo. At the time, Cronje publicly stated that he and his team would have had no qualms about playing in Sri Lanka — and that was one example of many statements or actions where the South African team did the right thing, pure and simple.
In fact, if one was to put under the spotlight the public image of Hansie Cronje and England’s Michael Atherton during the World Cup, it would be hard to find a more black- and-white contrast. Cronje, with great similarity to his rugby counterpart Francois Pienaar, now seems to have an instinctive feel to say and do the appropriate thing at the appropriate time — whether publicly, at a press conference or in the high street.
Almost embarrassingly at the other end of the scale, the hapless Atherton appears to have the diplomatic dexterity and nimbleness of feet of a drunk elephant with its feet encased in concrete blocks. The Lancashire man has clearly been affected for the long term by the tabloid press in Britain and these days he simply does not care how his image is perceived.
Yet bloody-minded though he might wish to be, his reference to a local journalist as “a buffoon” after the England/South Africa match in Rawalpindi, represented a major error of judgment in manners — never mind an error by an England captain.
Managing director of the United Cricket Board of South Africa Ali Bacher is well aware of the integral part that the team and the individual image plays in modern-day cricket. “We have very strong views that the image of the game is crucially important — as well as the image of the players,” Bacher said the day after South Africa’s loss to the West Indies in Karachi.
“The players must behave on and off the field in a manner which befits the great traditions of the game. It is important to reflect the ethos of the game and, not withstanding the professionalism, that must be paramount. Certainly we in South Africa are very strong in giving every possible back-up support behind the scenes to our players to handle the responsibilities and the pressures that now await international cricketers.”
Bacher believes that it is impossible for a young player today to enter the realms of international cricket and not to make errors of judgment and to be able to handle the press confidently unless he is guided accordingly.
“The young players need assistance. If you take cricketers like Paul Adams and Jacques Kallis, if you don’t brief them and give them support behind the scenes, they’re going to run into problems.
“But we have our Plascon academy which runs every winter and one of the important aspects of that academy is to brief and to guide and almost to educate the young cricketers in these responsibilities.
“Hansie understands the need of the captain to play his part in insuring that the sponsors are looked after, that the media are looked after, that the administrators are looked after and that the ordinary folk in the street are looked after. All in all, we’re very proud of our team. And we must never get away from that aspect of cricket which is part of the culture of the game. We must preserve it and certainly we in South Africa will do our utmost to ensure that all the players who represent our country are well-briefed and well-versed in their responsibilities to the great game of cricket.”
Bacher emphasises that the United Cricket Board of South Africa will always take a firm stance in this regard: “We are going to drive a very firm and professional show where the players become paramount in our marketing strategy, but, within this context, there has to be discipline and there have to be contractual obligations.
“At the end of the day, the players have got to know their responsibilities to us and we’ve got to know our responsibilities to the players to ensure that, ultimately, the game of cricket flourishes.”