South African cricket can thank Australia for exposing some flaws. By all accounts the think-tank staged by the United Cricket Board (UCB) this week was a worthwhile exercise. After a harrowing summer, few would dispute that the game in this country is in a state of disrepair, but perhaps not to the extent that it cannot be fixed.
In some respects South Africa should be grateful to Australia. The beatings suffered both in Australia and at home cast a harsh light on South African cricket, showing up the cracks and flaws that the national team’s prior successes had papered over.
There was no place to hide against Australia and in the long term this may be no bad thing. Tuesday’s indaba, convened by UCB chief executive Gerald Majola, did not throw up any quick-fix solutions, nor should it have. It was the first step in a process that will hopefully culminate in a competitive showing by South Africa at next year’s World Cup.
The second step will take place this weekend when the UCB executive committee adopts a new constitution which will split the game into professional and amateur wings. At the same time the executive comittee is tasked with coming up with a cricket committee made up mainly, but perhaps not exclusively, of past players.
Properly organised and convened, this committee will serve as a link between those administering cricket and those actually playing the game. If nothing else, this season served to highlight the gap that has developed between the administrators, the players and the selectors.
There has been a great deal of speculation recently about the future of Rushdi Magiet’s selection panel as well as the captaincy and the coaching staff. The logical course to follow would be to scrap the current selection panel en bloc and leave Shaun Pollock, Graham Ford and Corrie van Zyl in their jobs.
The most basic reason for doing this comes from considering the alternative. If, for instance, you kept the current selectors, but appointed a new captain and coach, would you really have mended anything at all?
If Pollock was to be replaced, then the time for this would have been after the team returned from Australia. Having stuck with Pollock through the home tour, the UCB probably needs to stand by him for the World Cup. There is no question that the shortcomings of Pollock’s leadership were exposed by Australia, but it’s also probably true to say that he didn’t receive sufficient support from his senior players.
It’s a two-way business, this. When Ricky Ponting took over the Australian one-day captaincy, he made a point of consulting his senior players on the field. To start with, some asked who was actually captaining the side, but Ponting was doing the right thing and, as importantly, he received the support he needed.
It’s probably also fair to say that while the combination of Pollock and Ford has seemed to lack authority at times, it was never planned that way. Ford was appointed to be coach to Hansie Cronje’s captain. That pairing, as we all know, did not last long. But for all their faults, Pollock and Ford have now had experience of both winning and losing. And you can’t buy that at the corner shop.
Peter Robinson is the editor of CricInfo South Africa