Once firm friendship now symptom of South Africa’s decline

The best a mutual friend could offer when asked whether Du Plessis and De Villiers had fallen out permanently was, “I hope not.”

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE in Southampton

THE end of a 30-year friendship between Faf du Plessis and AB de Villiers could be part of the collateral damage of South Africa’s imploding World Cup campaign.

A slew of player retirements and the severing of other ties will likely follow what is shaping up as the team’s worst performance in the global showpiece.

For the first time in their eight trips to the tournament South Africa have lost three matches consecutively. They have to reel off victories in all six of their remaining games just to retain a serious chance of reaching the semi-finals.

They have lurched from one injury crisis to another, this week bidding talismanic fast bowler Dale Steyn farewell before he had bowled a ball in anger.

Looming like a storm in the distance is the deteriorating relationship between South Africa’s players and administrators.

An early grumble of that thunder was heard on May 18, when, the Sunday Times has learnt, Cricket South Africa (CSA) officials instructed the squad to cancel a training session to have breakfast with then sport minister Tokozile Xasa.

CSA have put coach Ottis Gibson on notice that he will be out of a job if he doesn’t win the trophy, while Mohammed Moosajee, South Africa’s manager since May 2008 and the team doctor since 2003, a highly trusted and respected figure in the dressingroom, will be out of contract after the World Cup.

Meanwhile, the South African Cricketers’ Association have launched legal action over CSA’s plan to restructure the domestic game, which is part of the suits’ attempts reaction to staunch losses they told parliament in October could amount to R654-million in 2022.

But perhaps the saddest aspect of the downward spiral in the game in South Africa is that two men who have called each other friends since they met as boys at primary school and are now, the Sunday Times understands, on poor terms.

The best a mutual friend could offer when asked whether Du Plessis and De Villiers had fallen out permanently was, “I hope not.”

Growing up, De Villers was always the star player and Du Plessis the canny captain.

De Villiers’ career leapt forward after he made his debut for South Africa in a test against England at St George’s Park in December 2004. Du Plessis, five months De Villiers’ senior, had to wait seven more years before he first pulled on a South Africa shirt.

In all Du Plessis played 90 games under De Villiers’ leadership. Du Plessis now holds that office, and captained De Villiers 34 times — and that could be the root of the tension between them.

“AB really likes to be the centre of attention,” a source who knows both said. “Faf then also became loved in South Africa as our new captain. Not sure ‘Abbas’ [De Villiers] liked that.

“There’s a wrong perception that they are close. Maybe they were a couple of years ago but they haven’t been for a while.”

That weakened connection would have been strained further this week when it emerged that De Villiers — whose retirement from the international game last May shocked the cricket world — was open to making a comeback.

The original version was that the selectors had rejected De Villiers’ offer. Then it was claimed De Villiers had voiced his desire shortly before South Africa named their World Cup squad.

The Sunday Times has been told that De Villiers was given assurances when he retired that “the door would be open” should he wish to return.

He heard nothing on the matter from CSA, and in a casual conversation with as yet unnamed figures during the first week of this year’s Indian Premier League, which started on March 23, exactly 10 months after he retired, he said he remained amenable to resurrecting his international career.

De Villiers did not, sources say, make a direct request to play for South Africa again. But CSA quoted their selection convenor Linda Zondi as saying: “For Faf du Plessis and Ottis Gibson to share AB’s desire to be included in the squad on the day we announced our World Cup squad on April 18was a shock to all of us.”

A CSA spokesperson then clarified that “at no point did Ottis and Faf want AB in the team. They simply relayed the message to Linda.”

In any event, De Villiers was by then ineligible. As Zondi said, “We made it clear [to De Villiers] that he would have to play during the home tours against Sri Lanka and Pakistan [in January and March] to be considered for selection, instead he signed to play in the Pakistan and Bangladesh Premier Leagues [from January to March].”

Injuries have also taken Hashim Amla, Lungi Ngidi and Anrich Nortjé out of the equation at the World Cup, although Amla has regained fitness and Ngidi should be back during the tournament.

Du Plessis needed medical treatment during the game against India after being struck on the hand while batting, and Rassie van der Dussen — ostensibly De Villiers’ replacement in the squad — strained a groin.

Du Plessis, Steyn, Imran Tahir, JP Duminy and Hashim Amla have all hinted, some more strongly than others, that the World Cup will be their last hurrah in international cricket.