The talk of SA’s Test team being in a “rebuilding” phase is legitimate, as is mention of their collective lack of experience and the many great players who have retired. But so are poorly executed shots, loose deliveries and dropped catches.
Concentrating on the basics applies to most things in life, and although Test cricket can be deliciously and subtly nuanced, clever tactics are no substitute for bowling the ball accurately, hitting it along the ground (mostly) and catching it.
A week before the squad even arrived in Karachi to begin their quarantine period, I suggested that expectations should not be set unreasonably high and should also include the completion of a safe and healthy tour. Everybody should be grateful for that, so far, as the Test squad returns home and the T20 players prepare for their three matches.
The regret for the Test players is that they created chances to fight their way back into both contests but failed to take them. The second Test might even have been won. They were not simply outplayed by a better team, which happens. They will fly home full of “what ifs” and “if onlys”. The greatest regret, however, is that they have been denied the opportunity of immediately rectifying their mistakes in three Tests against Australia. The regret extends far more widely and deeply than the players.
Cricket SA’s operations team has continued to function superbly while the executive has been in disarray, organising both domestic and international cricket with compromised resources. It is worth remembering that, although England decided against playing their three ODIs against the Proteas in December after two hotel staff contracted Covid-19, they felt sufficiently unthreatened to return home early.
Since then, successful bio-secure tours have been completed by Sri Lanka’s men and Pakistan’s women while the multiteam Momentum One-Day Cup and Cricket SA Under-19 week have been equally well managed in bio-bubbles in Potchefstroom and Stellenbosch. There is ample evidence that the operations team is as good as any in the world.
Yet Cricket Australia believed differently despite having every increasingly outrageous demand granted to them for more than two months before they were due to honour their commitment.
It started when Cricket Australia was told that the Irene Country Club, just a few kilometres from Centurion Park, would again be used as the base for both teams and that staff would isolate for two weeks on-site before the teams arrive. The Australians said it needed to be three weeks, seven days longer than any isolation period anywhere in the world.
Then they said they weren’t prepared to share the vast, luxury estate with their hosts. So Cricket SA said they would create a separate bubble for the Proteas, at huge cost.
The Australians said they would fly on a chartered plane but wanted a “private” airport rather than a busy, commercial one such as OR Tambo. Special clearance was sought, and obtained, for them to land at Lanseria and be transported immediately to Irene.
Then the Australians said they would in fact be arriving on a Qantas Dreamliner — too large for Lanseria. So Cricket SA sought, and obtained, permission for the superjet to use the Oppenheimers’ private terminal at OR Tambo and for the tourists to again be delivered to their five-star base with minimum, if any, sight of other people. The driver of their bus would have to have undergone two weeks of self-isolation.
The Australians insisted that expensive track-and-trace equipment, developed in Australia, be used throughout the tour. Cricket SA purchased the technology and agreed to use it extensively before and during the tour.
The story developed into something between farce and tragedy when the would-be tourists demanded medical guarantees in the event that some of their party contracted the virus. Fancy that. Millions of people sick and dying around the world but the Australian cricket team wanted “guarantees”.
Cricket SA’s weary but persistent operations team asked health minister Zweli Mkhize if there was anything he could do. Controversially, many might say, the minister signed a letter in which he said the cricketers would receive the best treatment in the country’s best facilities should they fall ill.
Then, suddenly and without warning, Cricket Australia announced that the tour was off. Around 24 hours later it emerged that 19 Australian players had applied for non-exemption certificates (permission) to play in the Indian Premier League (IPL), due to start just days after the scheduled end of the Test series in SA.
Nick Hockley, the CEO of Cricket Australia, said the decision not to travel to SA was taken on “medical advice” but did not specify from whence it had come. He said playing in the IPL is “different” because it has “… a proven bio-security method in place”. Proven in the United Arab Emirates. Cricket SA’s is proven in SA.
The Proteas may have dropped 10 catches in two Test matches against Pakistan, but they were honest mistakes. Australia’s cricketers and their administrators dropped the ball of decency and honesty, and did so in a cold, calculated and deliberate manner.
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