Money talks, players listen

“If a player goes to the IPL [instead of being in the national team] it doesn’t mean they think less of the country or they are less patriotic.” - Pholetsi Moseki, CSA chief executive

Telford Vice | Cape Town

IF you were able to be close enough to the Bangladesh squad as they prepare for their ODI series against South Africa that starts in Centurion on Friday, you might hear something surprising: Afrikaans.

That would be the natural mode of communication between Allan Donald, the visitors’ fast bowling coach, and Albie Morkel, their power hitting coach. Head coach Russell Domingo’s first language is English, but as a son of Gqeberha he wouldn’t struggle to understand what Donald and Morkel are gaaning aan — going on — about.

The South African connection to the Bangladeshis is in fact stronger than that: they spent time in the nets with Gary Kirsten this week. Asked what his work with the players entailed, Kirsten said he was “helping them prepare and plan for South African conditions and what they can expect”.

The relationship between Domingo and Kirsten goes back to the latter’s playing career, when the former spent time with South Africa’s squad as part of a development coaching initiative. The pair hit it off well enough for Domingo, who became the Warriors coach in 2005, to hire Kirsten as a consultant for the franchise — the first step on his way to becoming a World Cup-winning coach with India in 2011. When Kirsten was appointed South Africa’s coach in June 2011 he named Domingo as his assistant. Domingo succeeded Kirsten in May 2013, and remained in the job until August 2017. Bangladesh unveiled Domingo as their coach in August 2019.

The Bangladesh backroom is a veritable United Nations of cricket. Team director Khaled Mahmud is home grown, but alongside the three South Africans are Sri Lanka great Rangana Herath, as the spin bowling coach, a couple of Australians — batting coach Jamie Siddons and fielding coach Shane McDermott — and strength and conditioning expert Nick Lee, an Englishman. The Tigers have previously employed Julian Calefato, a South African-Italian physio, and Srini Chandrasekaran, an Indian analyst. They have since been replaced by Bayzidul Islam and Nasir Ahmed, Bangladeshis both.

All this internationalism will hit hard with cricketminded South Africans, who are braced for the absence of familiar and trusted faces in the Test series that will follow the ODIs. Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen, Aiden Markram and Rassie van der Dussen are all in the white-ball squad and would have been shoe-ins for the Tests. But they are also attached to IPL franchises, along with Anrich Nortjé, who is out of the ODIs with a hip injury.

Asked by Dean Elgar in a heartfelt press conference on March 4 to put country ahead of cash and stay on for the Tests, which will be played from March 31 to April 11, instead of joining their IPL sides, who will be in action from March 26, indications are that those players will choose instead to go to India. While CSA’s agreement to release their players for the IPL is unchanged, the expanded and lengthened tournament has encroached beyond its original window. As cricket’s most lucrative endeavour, the IPL has the financial muscle to call the shots regardless of any other commitments the players might have.

“The many leagues around the world have complicated the bilateral programmes of a lot of countries,” Pholetsi Moseki, who will be CSA’s chief executive from April 1, told a press conference on Wednesday. “Currently, according to our memorandum of understanding with the South African Cricketers’ Association, the IPL is the only league globally that we can’t refuse players going to. As CSA, we support that. The amount of money players make at the IPL is good for their post-cricket careers and livelihoods. It’s a delicate balance. The players take playing for the country very seriously. So if a player goes to the IPL [instead of turning out for the national team] it doesn’t mean they think less of the country or they are less patriotic.”

South Africa’s supporters will struggle to accept that. Why, they will ask, are CSA failing to hang onto some of the national team’s best players while Afrikaans is being spoken in Bangladesh’s dressing room? There is no neat answer to the question. This is about earning potential as much as it’s about South Africa producing more playing and coaching talent than it can reasonably absorb at the highest level. It’s also about ambitious teams like Bangladesh feeling the need to look for expertise further afield in order to keep abreast of world trends.

Cricketers are, after all, professionals. Which teams they play for and coach matters about as much as which language they speak. What matters most is what talks the loudest: money.

First published by Cricbuzz.