Should CSA bring the axe down on Gibson’s tenure the sensible option would be to leave the India tour in the hands of a caretaker coach.
Sunday Times
TELFORD VICE in London
A faltering team whose seasoned players are eyeing life after cricket with relief, and whose young guns are failing to fire.
A board who seem intent on pleasing none of the people none of the time, except themselves.
A public keen to pitchfork you onto the heap of all those coaches who, having led a horse called South Africa to water, have failed to make it drink and so fulfil their potential.
Who would want Ottis Gibson’s job?
Gibson. He said so after a men’s World Cup in which his team won only a third of their games.
But do Cricket South Africa (CSA) want Gibson?
The board met last Saturday to try and answer that question, among others that that loom out of the fog of the tournament, and will do so again on Thursday.
What are the chances of finding a credible replacement ahead of South Africa’s next engagement in September, when Gibson will only just be under contract?
Should CSA look for a new coach, or is Gibson the best person for the job because he knows how low his team are in the wake of their disastrous trip to England?
And how does the fact that, for their next trick, South Africa will be in India — where the nightmare of the 2015 test series swirls still?
“It’s a tough tour but you have to start somewhere,” Russell Domingo, Gibson’s predecessor who was in the job during that spiral to a 3-0 defeat, said of the impending challenge.
“We won the T20s and the ODIs, so it was brilliant to start with. But it was such a long tour — we had three T20s and five ODIs and only then did we play the Tests.”
That tour stretched on for 70 days from September to December. This one, comprising three T20s and as many tests, will be half as long.
And the conditions in the tests shouldn’t be tilted quite so far in the home side’s favour as they were in 2015, when the Nagpur pitch was rated “poor” and the Mohali and Delhi surfaces weren’t much better.
“I can’t see them preparing wickets like that again, not with the Test championship starting,” Domingo said.
“I think the wickets we had last time in the Test series was a reaction to what happened in the T20 and one-day series.”
Should CSA bring the axe down on Gibson’s tenure the sensible option would be to leave the India tour in the hands of a caretaker coach.
Domingo has been there, done that and got the tikka masala — and he will be in India with South Africa A until five days after the senior side start the T20 series.
Would he fancy a go?
“No. I’ve done my time.”
Corrie van Zyl, who took South Africa to the 2011 World Cup in Asia, also has relevant experience.
So there are options. But what CSA will do with them is far from certain. They shouldn’t expect confidence in their ability to make the right decision.
Steve Cornelius, the Pretoria University law professor who is among CSA’s independent directors, missed last Saturday’s meeting, the Sunday Times was told.
Asked on email to confirm that, not least because the suits could use all the independent thinking they can get, Cornelius duly did, saying he had an immovable prior commitment.
“However, as good governance dictates, all meeting material was made available in advance,” Cornelius wrote.
“I had the opportunity to consider that and discuss matters with other members of the board. I am therefore confident that my views on matters were known and taken into consideration.”
Let’s hope so.
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