CSA hacked emails, says franchise

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

One of SA’s cricket franchises say they have confirmed that Cricket SA (CSA) have been spying on their emails, while another suspects they are victims of the same violation.

A third franchise thinks their privacy may also have been invaded, but feels the intrusion could have come from within their provincial structures.

The claims of Orwellian behaviour come less than two weeks after CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat escaped punishment at an International Cricket Council (ICC) investigation despite admitting that he had offered journalists interviews in exchange for not publishing articles that were potentially damaging to CSA.

The remaining three franchises said they were “shocked” and “alarmed” by the allegations and considered them evidence of “unethical” management tactics by CSA.

If true, they could be seen as part of CSA’s growing obsession with keeping strict control of information on how the game is run in SA.

None of the six franchises spoke on the record, perhaps because they are paid more by CSA than they earn off their own bats.

“Maybe we’re being paranoid, maybe we’re not,” a franchise official said. “But if we catch them there will be shit.”

CSA president Chris Nenzani said, “It is very difficult to comment on something like this. My advice is that they (the affected franchise) must approach the law enforcement agencies of this country.”

Sources say CSA staff have been threatened with lie detector tests in an effort to stop information from escaping official clutches.

Similar suspicion has reached board level. “They think board members walk out of meetings and immediately call the press,” a source said.

Meanwhile, three sources say CSA’s former legal and compliance manager, Pume Canca, left the organisation in part because the minutes he had taken at meetings were altered when they appeared in reports.

Canca did not respond to efforts to ask him to confirm that charge and CSA ignored requests for comment.

CSA’s extreme response to criticism - they have taken to refusing to interact with journalists who do not toe their company line - would seem to be escalating because of the organisation’s potentially flagging financial status in the wake of the restructure of world cricket in February.

To repair their damaged relationship with the hyper-sensitive Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), who generate more than 70% of cricket’s world revenue, CSA know they cannot be seen to put a foot wrong.

The ICC probe into Lorgat was sparked by BCCI suspicions that he was involved in the preparation of or had prior knowledge of a statement written and released by a former ICC head of legal, David Becker, in October. The statement was highly critical of the BCCI and their president, Narayanaswami Srinivasan. Lorgat was cleared on those charges.

The BCCI have made plain their opposition to Lorgat’s appointment as CSA chief executive, which put season’s tour by India to SA in danger of not going ahead. In the end, it was sharply curtailed.

The enmity between Lorgat and Srinivasan harks back to Lorgat’s tenure as ICC chief executive from 2008 to 2012.