CSA interim board: The men and women tasked to fix the organisation

Cricket South Africa’s new interim board of directors, as named by sports minister Nathi Mthethwa on Friday, includes a trio of passionate cricket-lovers who have gone to town in recent times in their criticism of the organisation and the recently-resigned board.

Chief among CSA’s critics on the interim board is Haroon Lorgat, an astonishing appointment given that he was the federation’s chief executive as recently as September 2017, before being deposed by the power bloc that included Thabang Moroe, whose tenure and subsequent suspension and firing have been central to CSA’s governance crisis. But Lorgat is an internationally-respected administrator who is a former CEO of the International Cricket Council and CSA was a stable organisation during his watch.

Omphile Ramela, the president of the South African Cricketers Association, has also been a strident critic of CSA on behalf of the players, while Judith February is a lawyer and governance expert for the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Institute for Security Studies, as well as a respected columnist who has also expressed her dismay over the administration of a sport she is clearly passionate about.

SA Cricketers’ Association president Omphile Ramela. Picture: Gallo Images

Judge Zak Yacoob, a former justice of the Constitutional Court, will chair the interim board and it will be interesting to see how he intertwines the conflicting views of CSA’s critics with those of an interim board member like Xolani Vonya, the recently-resigned Easterns president who has been a strong supporter of both Moroe and company secretary Welsh Gwaza, who has been seen as a stumbling block to change at the organisation.

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Andre Odendaal, the former CEO of the Western Province Cricket Association and the Cape Cobras, is another appointee, who has had a long history in the game as a first-class player, administrator and historian.

The other interim board members announced on Friday are Caroline Mampuru, the deputy head of the Special Investigative Unit, Stavros Nicolaou, a senior executive for a major pharmaceutical company, and Andile Dawn Mbatha, the chief financial officer of the Independent Electoral Commission.

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