Over the course of this weekend the general council of the United Cricket Board (UCB) will turn a magnifying glass on the management of the South African team during the past summer. It might help the council members, not to mention the national side, if a mirror is also employed during these deliberations.
During the past few weeks speculation has mounted that coach Graham Ford is about to get the chop with Eric Simons, Eldine Baptiste and Dave Nosworthy all touted as possible replacements. Ford, it must be said, did himself few favours with his lukewarm reception of the national cricket committee set up to find out and fix what went wrong with the South African team.
Shaun Pollock’s captaincy has also been questioned and again and again the name Jonty Rhodes has cropped up, although the player himself has insisted he doesn’t want the job.
While all this has been going on, the idea of an ”über-manager” has been mooted with Goolam Rajah being pushed sideways into a role more specifically concerned with logistics.
In essence, though, what all this boils down to is a perception — in some quarters a conviction — that South Africa failed against Australia because of weak management. This, it is argued, manifested itself in a lack of discipline on the field.
It is probably true enough to argue that together Ford, Pollock and Rajah do not quite add up to a steely-eyed gestapo. More to the point, however, are the questions of if and when their responsibilities were ever spelled out.
It is now common cause that the previous selection convener took it upon himself to exclude the coach from the selection process. Which means that Ford had neither a say in who was in the team nor in who was out. In the circumstances, you can hardly blame the coach for a perceived lack of discipline.
The real issue that should concern the general council is not who should fill these vital roles, but how they should be filled. In other words, the council’s primary task is to decide on powers and responsibilities.
And that does not exclude the UCB’s own responsibilities. Twice last year the UCB — in the shape of the council and the committees appointed to run the game — copped out. When six members of the squad were caught smoking dagga in the Caribbean, the UCB initially tried to cover the incident up and then ignored a suspended sentence imposed on Herchelle Gibbs a year previously.
Later in the year, when Lance Klusener provoked a row by refusing to attend a press conference, the general council fudged the matter and instead concerned itself with whether players should be allowed to commentate.
If there is to be accountability, responsibility and discipline in South African cricket, it has to start at the top. The general council’s primary task this weekend should be to decide how the roles of manager, coach and captain should function and what powers and responsibilities should be given them. Then, and only then, should it decide who should fill these roles and make a commitment to backing them to the hilt. If the council decides otherwise, we will see South African cricket going around in the same old circles.
Peter Robinson is the editor of CricInfo South Africa