Grim clouds swirl as SA prepare to face Aus

Times Media - February 4, 2014

TELFORD VICE, Johannesburg

Not for the first time in Graeme Smith’s 11 years as SA’s captain, a grim cloud of trouble swirls above his team and their preparations for an important series.

Also not for the first time, the problems are of neither his nor his players’ making. But, unfairly, they will be saddled with the consequences.

This time, the swirling cloud is the members of the International Cricket Council wheeling and dealing their way towards voting in favour of a proposal that will reserve most of the money and power in the game for the use - and no doubt the abuse - of boards representing India, England and Australia.

And that as the SA squad gathered at the Wanderers yesterday to tighten the nuts and bolts for a test series against Australia starting in Centurion on February 12.

“There’s so much happening around this stuff, we need to focus on what we can control,” Smith said. “We’ve got to trust that the administrators are going to make decisions in the best interests of cricket. Our job is to play cricket - we have to prove we are the No. 1 team in the world and that we deserve to be here.”

Eight of the ICC’s 10 full members will need to vote in favour of the plan for it to be accepted. Three boards remain opposed, but inside sources say one of them - Cricket SA (CSA) - are considering what would be an embarrassing about turn on their position seeing as they were the first and most strident voice of dissent.

Smith has led SA since the aftermath of their first-round crash out of the 2003 World Cup. He has lived with protracted clashes between CSA’s self-interested administrators, seen the country’s premier ground, the Wanderers, have its international status revoked in a squabble over the Indian Premier League, learnt of the law-breaking at the heart of CSA’s bonus scandal, and observed the board’s failure to implement the most far-reaching recommendations of the Nicholson investigation that was meant to clean up the mess.

The perennially poor performance of CSA’s administrators since Smith took the reins has been a sad but true mirror image of the results delivered by a team who, despite the suits’ ineptitude, have earned the right to call themselves the finest side in the test arena.

A large part of the credit for that success belongs to Jacques Kallis, who retired after the series against India in December.

“Jacques’ legacy is difficult to replace,” Smith said. “You can’t hide from the fact that we’re going to miss someone of his calibre. But there’s enough talent around this dressingroom.

“But I would hate to see Jacques as a burden. We should be proud of what he gave us and use it to our advantage.”

Smith stopped short of rolling his eyes at Michael Clarke’s assertion last week that Australia had the best attack in the game.

Did Smith consider that kind of comment as motivation? “Definitely.”

But he has been there and done that long enough to know that, “when you play Australia you learn to sift through the bull-dot, dot, dot: we don’t feel the need to get caught up in that stuff”.

SA could win an early advantage if the rain that led to the cancellation yesterday of the Aussies’ four-day tour match in Potchefstroom does not disrupt their own three-day practice game starting at the Wanderers today.

All 15 squad members will be involved. They will be joined by seven franchise players - Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock, Simon Harmer, Beuran Hendricks, Reeza Hendricks, Rilee Rossouw and Stiaan van Zyl - to make up the numbers.