Right, then. The situation is this: Just two months after his appointment, and with one short tour and two Test matches under his belt, South African cricket coach Ray Jennings has been told by his employers to watch his mouth.
There are two ways of looking at this. On the one hand, many will think it remarkable that Jennings lasted two months before being told to shut up.
Others, though, will be disappointed that Jennings’s trenchant observations about the make-up of the South African team have been silenced. In recent years, coachspeak has tended to be so vague as to be meaningless. Coupled with the reluctance of South African cricket boss Gerald Majola to say anything at all, and the incoherence with which selection convener Omar Henry was wont to offer his opinions, the thinking around the South African team has generally been as clear as mud.
Quite apart from the finger trouble that caused Majola’s stern admonition to Jennings to be circulated to every newspaper and radio station in the country lies a more fundamental question: Why did Majola choose e-mail to warn Jennings about criticising his employers?
Wouldn’t it have been more straightforward simply to have picked up the phone and warned Jennings to watch what he was saying? Does the e-mail constitute some kind of written warning? Who knows, but it seems to provide further evidence of the culture of intolerance and suspicion that has enveloped the United Cricket Board over the past couple of years.
It is revealing that on the day of the announcement of the team for the first Test against England, another selector, Joubert Strydom, also wondered publicly what Mark Boucher had to do to satisfy officialdom that he had seen, and regretted, the error of his ways, whatever they might have been.
Still, it would be unfair not to welcome the appointment of Haroon Lorgat as the new convener of selectors. Urbane and articulate, Lorgat was highly regarded as a lucid thinker during his playing days. You might not agree with the squad
selected for the first Test, but Lorgat is prepared to debate the issue and listen to opposing points of view.
As it happens, apart from the retention of Thami Tsolekile as wicketkeeper ahead of Boucher, the problem facing Lorgat, captain Graeme Smith and Jennings is how to squeeze 13 into ll.
As it happens, it might come down to fitting 12 into 11. Nicky Boje was due to have come out of hospital on Thursday after an operation to a growth on his thyroid, but he has not bowled for three weeks and he may not be considered sufficiently match fit for the first Test.
If this is the case, his absence would open the way for Dale Steyn to make his Test debut while the vice-captaincy would revert to Boeta Dippenaar, thus ensuring his place in the starting line-up. This would leave Hashim Amla, Zander de Bruyn and Andrew Hall fighting for two places.
Informed speculation suggests that Amla will make his home debut, leaving one of De Bruyn or Hall to drop out. Pity the selector who has to inform one of these two that he will not be playing.
There is little doubt that Amla is one for the future. Despite looking nervous on his first appearance at the crease at Eden Gardens, he played calmly and with assurance. The test of temperament is not to be nerveless, but to control emotion, and Amla appears capable of coping with pressure in the most trying of circumstances. Whether he would bring more to the side, at this stage, than either De Bruyn or Hall, however, is another matter.
We know, though, that South African cricket faces its own particular challenges and that Amla’s selection or omission is an emotive issue. Either way, someone’s going to be upset, but what really matters is how Amla copes with any controversy that might surround him.
Earlier this week Lorgat spoke of the need to build a team for the 2007 World Cup in the West Indies. This is a perfectly reasonable aim, but it should not be achieved at the expense of the here and now — which, self-evidently, starts in Port Elizabeth next Friday.
England have emerged as the only realistic contenders for Australia’s throne in recent times, a challenge based to no little degree on a pace attack spearheaded by the formidable Steve Harmison.
They have the weapons to test South Africa on South African soil, a state of affairs that was not the case on the 1995/96 and 1999/2000 tours.
Which brings us back again to Jennings. Among the views attributed to him in the Sunday Times interview that aroused Majola’s ire was the remark: ‘I’ve expressed some of my views to the selectors on certain issues. They disagree with me and they have the right to. I’m one of four guys and I go with them. They need to have a look at their vision and implement certain issues.â€
In the circumstances in which South African cricket currently finds itself, this seems no more than common sense.