What’s next for the man who oversaw the best-organised cricket World Cup yet? As importantly, what’s next for the cellphone of the man who oversaw cricket’s best-organised World Cup?
If you call him, on his cellphone, Ali Bacher will tell you that perhaps the key element behind the World Cup was his cellular telephone. Very much an innocent when it comes to technology, Bacher has just about got to grips with faxes, but remains sceptical about e-mail.
‘I went on an e-mail course a couple of years ago,†he admitted this week. ‘So I understand the general principle. But they just seem to clutter things up, don’t they?â€
But, he says, he couldn’t function without his cellphone. He might not be able to retrieve his voice-mail (legend has it that his first cellphone expired with a gentle sigh under the weight of over 400 messages) and he wouldn’t recognise an SMS if it was given to him for breakfast, but if he hears his phone ring, he’ll answer the call.
By most estimations, the World Cup was a great success, despite the controversies that provided its backdrop and the generally held view that it went on for about a week too long.
The second stage lost much of its gloss with the early demise of South Africa, England, Pakistan and the West Indies and England went home chuntering darkly about the injustice of having to forfeit their game against Zimbabwe. This, though, was the same England which, in late 2002, had agreed to play in Harare.
From an organisational point of view, though, the tournament passed off with scarcely an obvious glitch.
‘I had a great team to work with at Summer Place [the organising committee’s headquarters],†says Bacher. ‘They were all consultants or experts in their own fields, and although it may have been a particular project, they were all intensely passionate about making it succeed. I had an open door policy which meant that people were popping in for two minutes here and there, sometimes about 10 times a day, but mostly they got on with what they were good at.â€
And he answered his phone. ‘It was,†he says, ‘a very important part of the World Cup.â€
But will the phone be retired now? He turns 61 this year and he has reached the stage when the role of elder statesman seems to beckon. But simply in terms of South African cricket, and South African sport, for that matter, there is no one else quite so skilled at getting things done and quite so adept at building bridges.
His influence on South African cricket is unparalleled and his ability to tread a fine line between conflicting demands has been a characteristic of his 22 years in cricket administration. He has an almost unique ability to traverse shifting sands (in January and February of 1990 he arranged, and aborted, the last rebel tour to South Africa; in November of 1991 he was in India with the first South African team to tour the sub-continent).
His influence on South African cricket is enormous. Even though he left the United Cricket Board (UCB) more than two years ago, he is still automatically blamed for anything and everything that goes on at the UCB.
And it tends to be the case that he gets it in the neck from both ends of the political spectrum, from the African National Congress Youth League through to crusty old white administrators who see him as a government lackey. All of which tends to suggest that he usually gets most things mostly right.
But what happens now to all this experience? ‘My mind and body are telling me enough after 22 years,†he claims. Fair enough, but perhaps the mind and body might get a little fidgety a few months or a year or so down the line.
One possibility could be the presidency of the International Cricket Council (ICC), but Bacher is guarded about this, proclaiming no ambitions for the position. Those close to Bacher say he will not seek nomination when it comes to South Africa’s turn next year to offer a candidate for the 2004 vice-presidency to take over the presidency in 2005. More specifically, say his confidantes, he is adamant that he will not oppose Percy Sonn should Sonn step down from the UCB presidency later this year, allowing Border’s Ray Mali into the position.
It is no secret that Sonn wants the ICC position, and three months ago he might have been a shoo-in to win the UCB’s support for his candidacy. His behaviour during the World Cup, however, appears to have given the UCB pause for thought.
Sonn sought an endorsement for his candidacy at last month’s UCB general council meeting. It was not forthcoming, with the UCB fudging the issue. He is still favourite to win the candidacy, but what if the UCB decide that Sonn’s mercurial temperament might prove a future source of embarrassment at the ICC?
There is more to Sonn, of course, than an inability to hold his liquor, but there is no doubt that the Paarl episode, together with an ill-judged threat during the World Cup to call off this year’s England tour, will count against him.
If not Sonn, though, then who? Realistically, only Bacher and former UCB president Krish Mackerdhuj would seem to be options. Mackerdhuj’s ambassadorship in Japan has taken him out of cricket’s mainstream for several years, although
he was, and always will be, a shrewd operator.
It’s hard, though, not to believe that Bacher has, by some distance, the best credentials, stretching back to his days as a Test captain. He has had run-ins with several of members of the UCB general council over the years and is by no means everyone’s favourite cricket administrator. But he is, almost certainly, best suited for the role.
He won’t push himself forward as a candidate, but neither has he closed the door on the possibility. This might simply be a matter of keeping his own options open until the World Cup has worked its way out of his system and he may yet find different avenues to explore.
He is not the only significant figure in South African cricket, but he has been the most influential and, for better or worse, the game in this country would not be where it is today without him. He should not be allowed to slip quietly out to pasture.