CRICKET: Jon Swift
IT is of course supposition, for no one in the United Cricket Board would be so arrogant as to make this claim, but South Africa are starting to wield an increasing influence on world cricket affairs.
It shows in a number of aspects, some of them spelt out by UCB managing director Ali Bacher on his report-back from the latest ICC meeting, some of them less immediate.
Foremost is the growing role world cricket sees for this country in the development of the game across the African continent.
Inside the next three and a half years, South Africa will undertake an odyssey which sees us either host or undertake nine tours within the confines of the map of Africa.
Equally germane to this, is our own development programme. “These will all be affirmative action sides,” says Bacher with the satisfaction of a man headed where he wants to head.
The first of these tours is a South African Invitation XI to play in a 10-nation tournament in the Malawian capital of Blantyre between September 10 and 17, a sub-Saharan gathering which promises to be the first of many such tournaments.
Perhaps Bacher states the obvious when he labels it “a tremendous chance for our young cricketers”, but playing on two levels — top-flight tests and African upgrading — must have a long-term effect on the game as a whole in this country.
The development thrust is equally evident in Bacher’s submission that the first test in the 1995-96 England tour of this country be played at Pretoria’s Centurion Park.
To some purists, the cosy ground alongside the Jukskei River is entrenched as a superb one-day venue, but even though it is designed as a test centre, there must remain some doubts about the ground as a whole.
Bacher is unfazed by this. “We hope it will help engender a deeper cricket culture in Pretoria,” he says. Certainly, the empty seats which have been a disturbing feature of test crowds, will be less evident in the restricted confines at Centurion Park.
But there is one area of development — one that is dear to Bacher’s heart — that he is saying nothing about.
The driving force behind such advances as the TV-monitor umpire, Bacher would only offer a wry grin when asked if he had frightened the ICC with further forays into the realms of modern technology.
“I think I’d better offer a ‘No comment’ on that one,” he said. We await with anticipation developments on this front.