There is still a long way to go and an awful lot can still go wrong. The logistics are as problematic as any group of administrators could face in the current climate and the entire process could still be derailed. Promises have been made and there is, apparently, a strong will from both sides to make it happen. Sound familiar?
We are talking, of course, about the Proteas’ tour of the Caribbean scheduled for June during which they are due to play two Test matches and five T20 Internationals.
“We have regular calls with our operations counterparts at Cricket SA and it is looking good,” said Cricket West Indies (CWI) CEO Jonny Grave. “They obviously have a few complexities with their travel because they are on the ‘red list’ of the US and the UK, but they have managed to secure some seats to get to the Caribbean and hopefully that means the tour will be on,” he said in Barbados last week.
“A few complexities” is delightfully understated. The team cannot travel the usual route to the Caribbean, on a commercial flight through London, unless they are prepared to do 10 days in an official quarantine hotel at a cost in excess of R1m for a squad of 28 players and support staff.
Travelling the long way around through the US is no less complicated and barely less expensive, with business-class seats on the few commercial flights still operating selling at more than R220,000 apiece.
It seems likely that Cricket SA’s operations team will charter a modest commercial plane from an airline rather than a luxury one from a private supplier, with the costs either split with CWI or even paid in full by the hosts. CWI are no less cash-strapped than Cricket SA.
“We still have some work to do at our end in terms of agreeing with the governments where we are going to host them, and the logistics of getting them there,” Grave said with another scoop of understatement.
Just as important as the travel for Grave is meeting the Covid-19 protocols to satisfy the host government, most probably Trinidad and Tobago.
“They will come through seven days of isolation and testing before they leave SA … and their players in the IPL [Indian Premier League] are in a tight biosecure environment where they are not interacting with members of the population, so I do not foresee that being an issue.”
Though the venues haven’t been confirmed, it seems likely that Trinidad’s two international venues — Queens Park Oval and the Brian Lara Cricket Academy — make them favourites to host the whole tour. Last year’s Caribbean Premier League was also staged exclusively in Trinidad. This year’s event will be staged in St Kitts and Nevis.
It is instructive to see and hear just how disassociated the Cricket SA operations team have become from their dysfunctional, discredited employers on the board and members council (MC). The operations team is keeping its collective head down and concentrating on doing its job. Like having a father in prison, they never mentioned it.
“The governance issues that they are going through were never raised or discussed … they confirmed that they are going to tour and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we can deliver it,” Grave said.
The opening paragraph also applies, of course, to the future of the entire professional game in SA, not just the Proteas. An agreement in principle by the MC to accept a revised constitution incorporating long-overdue governance measures for Cricket SA cannot be relied upon until it is signed. Not just because more than half of the provincial presidents have shown themselves to be untrustworthy, but because the minister of sport also has to overcome the cynically motivated Sascoc (SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee) president.
Surely, you would think, the minister is the boss of Sascoc? That is clearly what the minister believes and what he told both the interim board and the MC as an incentive to reach their agreement.
The time for healing will arrive in due course, and everybody — from players to board members, sponsors and broadcasters — will have to overcome significant mistrust for the game to once again prosper. But some people have done too much long-term irreparable harm to remain.
“Today is a historic day for cricket in SA and we look forward to being part of a new governance structure for cricket and playing our part in ensuring sound administration of the game we hold so dear,” said MC acting president Rihan Richards. He said a “ministerial intervention would have caused cricket in our country irreparable harm”.
Yet that was exactly the route down which he led Cricket SA for more than six months. He voted for it. He and half a dozen of his colleagues can have no place in the future administration of the game. If it is a game he does indeed hold dear, he will leave it now and close the door behind him.
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