In stark contrast to the chaos in its committee rooms, CSA was able to announce an impressive list of men’s home matches for the coming season. Having secured government permission last week for next month’s tour by England ,it added visits by Sri Lanka, Australia and Pakistan to the schedule on Tuesday – a day after the remaining members of its board resigned, and on the same day that government has set as the deadline for it to provide adequate reasons why it should avoid state intervention.
South Africa will play England in three matches in each of the white-ball formats from November 27 to December 9. Two Tests against Sri Lanka will follow from December 26 to January 7. Australia will be around in February and March for three more Tests, and Pakistan for three ODIs and three T20s, ending in April. No details for the tours by Australia and Pakistan, which in turn could host South Africa for the first time in 14 years early in 2021.
On top of CSA’s propensity for self-harm through mismanagement and shoddy governance, cricket in South Africa also had to overcome the obstacles posed by the pandemic to be able to put their players back on the field.
A release quoted Kugandrie Govender, CSA’s acting chief executive as expressing the organisation’s “gratitude… to the boards of England, Sri Lanka, Australia and Pakistan for their agreement to these tours and assisting us in bringing [cricket] to the South African public under the ‘new normal’ that COVID-19 has presented us”.
Not that the public will be in attendance due to coronavirus regulations. But that is a secondary consideration for now. “[The schedule] comes as a result of many hours of dedication, negotiation and hard work by individuals behind the scenes to ensure that our fans have an exciting line-up of cricket to look forward to throughout the summer and, although the matches will be played behind closed doors, we will have enough entertainment to make them feel as though they are a part of match-day activities,” Govender was quoted as saying.
All matches and training sessions will take place in a bio-secure bubble, as per government instruction, that will be closed to the public.
The New Year Test will be played in Johannesburg for only the fourth time, and will make its debut at the current Wanderers. All three previous editions of the showpiece match of the South African summer staged in Johannesburg – in 1906, 1910 and 1914 – were played at the old Wanderers, which was in a different part of the city. Like the two previous Boxing Day Tests, this year’s has been scheduled for Centurion.
But the Wanderers and Centurion are also home the fastest pitches in the country, and South Africa could be plotting revenge for the Lankans becoming the first Asian team to win a Test series in the country in February 2019, when the matches were played at Kingsmead and St George’s Park – the slowest pitches in the land.
The release said a CSA delegation would leave for Pakistan at the weekend to “perform a security assessment on the feasibility of the Proteas embarking on their first tour to Pakistan since 2007”.
All of which might make you think all is as well as could be expected in South African cricket. If only. But at least there will soon be something else to think about besides wayward administration.