Cricket South Africa needs a Rassie Erasmus to haul it out of the doldrums

Cricket South Africa congratulated the Springboks on their triumph in the Rugby World Cup final, with chief executive Thabang Moroe noting it was “a victory that has a significance that goes far beyond the winning of a rugby match”.

Moroe went on to quote Nelson Mandela on sport’s “ability to inspire and unite people in a way that little else does”.

Moroe did not draw any parallels between rugby and cricket. It might have been an appropriate time to do so, because cricket finds itself in a situation similar to that of rugby some 18 months ago, before Rassie Erasmus and Siya Kolisi began the climb that culminated in Saturday’s emotional and emphatic triumph in Yokohama.

The Springboks appeared to be rudderless when Allister Coetzee was fired as coach in February 2018. Erasmus, director of rugby at the SA Rugby Union, took over as coach. One of his first moves was to make Kolisi captain, which has proved an inspired choice. Erasmus, who won 36 Test caps as a player, had a clear idea of how he wanted the Springboks to play, appears to have been given a free hand to implement his plans, and set about putting the right players in place.

By contrast, South African cricket is not far from crisis mode. The Proteas have had a dismal run, suffering a shock home Test series defeat against Sri Lanka, a dismal World Cup and a humiliating Test series loss in India. Key players have retired and there appears to be no clear vision of how to turn fortunes around before England arrives for a high-profile tour in December.

CSA itself is running at a financial loss, sponsors are in short supply and there is a deepening rift between the governing body and the SA Cricketers’ Association (SACA), which represents the country’s players.

Ottis Gibson, most of his coaching staff and the selectors were sacked (or, more politely, not offered new contracts) after the World Cup. CSA announced what it described as “a dynamic new structure”, with two new key positions to be created, those of a director of cricket and a team manager, with the latter in charge of all aspects of the national team, including the power to appoint his own support staff.

According to CSA’s press release of 4 August, the team manager role would be “similar to football-style structures”, which, for this scribe at least, evoked images of a supremo in the style of Pep Guardiola or Jurgen Klopp – or Rassie Erasmus.

The devil, though, was in the details. The team manager would report to the director of cricket, who would in turn report to the chief executive, with Moroe making it clear that he expected to have a significant amount of input.

Corrie van Zyl, a former international player and CSA’s manager of cricket pathways, was appointed interim director of cricket and it seemed he was a favourite to get the full-time role.

Speculation as to who would become team director – the title had been upgraded after the initial announcement – immediately focused on Mark Boucher and Ashwell Prince, the two franchise coaches with the most international playing experience, although it seemed possible that the net would be spread across the cricketing world.

It was therefore surprising when Enoch Nkwe, after a single, successful season in charge of the Lions franchise, was appointed in an interim capacity to take the team to India. Nkwe, 36, played in 42 first-class matches before suffering a career-ending injury and had built up an impressive coaching record before being offered the Lions position. Under his direction, the Lions won the four-day franchise competition and the Twenty20 title, while he was also in charge of the Jozi Stars, who won the inaugural Mzansi Super League, the loss-making city-based competition which CSA hopes will become South Africa’s equivalent of the Indian Premier League or Australia’s Big Bash.

Nkwe won plaudits for his no-nonsense approach at the Lions, with an emphasis on players taking responsibility. He saw Pep Guardiola as a role model, pointing out that the Spaniard had become the manager of Barcelona at the age of 36 and had built a phenomenal record as one of the world’s great coaches. Even so, it was asking a lot of a young man to be thrust into such a responsible position.

Applications for the positions of director of cricket, team director and convener of selectors closed last week. Van Zyl and Nkwe have both declared their interest but the waters were muddied considerably when Van Zyl, along with two other senior officials, was suspended by CSA in connection with a dispute with SACA over unpaid commercial rights from the 2018 Mzansi league, while Nkwe’s prospects could not have been enhanced by what happened in India.

The friction between CSA and SACA has become toxic and it appears that CSA, or more particularly Moroe, are trying to sideline the players’ body in order to deal directly with the cricketers, who are their most important asset. SACA has taken CSA to court over its plans to restructure domestic cricket and its failure to adhere to an agreement to consult with them.

It is against this background that the full-time director of cricket and team director will have to work. They will need to be people of stature, able to negotiate the right to do things their own way without artificial restrictions and with an understanding that it may take some time to right the ship.

They would do well to consult with Rassie Erasmus. DM