CSA fiddles while the Proteas (and franchise cricket) burns

The Proteas’ travails in India should focus the minds of all the sport’s stakeholders in South Africa on what our game needs in order for our national team to remain a force in international cricket.

And, given that we are not able to rely on a whole bunch of imports following in the wake of the incredible Imran Tahir (the England route is not open to us), the only way to make sure the Proteas are strong is by ensuring the levels below it are producing quality, hardened cricketers.

In other words, domestic cricket is absolutely critical if South Africa are going to remain at the top table of the international game and if Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) executives are able to continue enjoying the lavish indulgences that often seem to be the only reason they are in the sport.

The franchises are where all the next generation of Proteas come from (at least until CSA push through the dodgy plan to go back to 12 provinces and dilute CSA are playing with game’s bread and butter secret the system) and the new season began with the Knights, Titans and Highveld Lions making the early running with opening-round victories.

But the lack of attention given to the breeding ground of the future Proteas Test team once again makes one wonder where the priorities of the administrators lie.

The impression created is that CSA would just like to get the four-day competition out of the way with as little fuss and bother as possible, the decision to schedule the majority of matches from Monday to Thursday being for the purposes of cost-cutting above all else.

Of course, the move does not take into account the franchises then have to pay overtime for their staff and the suppliers who then have to work on the weekend in order to get ready for the Monday start.

The impression that CSA would prefer four-day cricket to just sit in the corner and be ignored was strengthened this week by the goings-on in Potchefstroom.

The match between the Lions and Cape Cobras only lasted seven minutes on the third day as 39 wickets fell on the first two days.

This was not enough to bother anyone at CSA or match referee Laurence Matroos, with no pitch inspector being called to examine the wicket.

There have been mutterings that the pitch was not properly prepared but CSA’s attitude seems to be “that’s too bad but we’re moving on”.

The Mzansi Super League, the biggest drain on CSA’s finances, is the golden child at the moment and all eyes are on what has become an ego project.

Plus Central Gauteng cricket are in CSA’s good books at the moment, having done them a favour by delaying their election.

Now that things went too far in Potchefstroom but no action was taken, one can expect some of the other franchises to also do some pitch doctoring, until the integrity of the whole competition – the breeding ground of our future
Test team, remember? – falls to pieces.

It is also just too sad that the general public have no way of watching the four-day competition, especially since it is now almost exclusively played during the working week.

But this is more the fault of SuperSport than of Cricket South Africa.

SuperSport hold the broadcast rights to all domestic franchise cricket and although they show the white-ball stuff, they do not take up their rights when it comes to first-class cricket.

But there are cameras recording every delivery of every match: PitchVision are the technical analysis providers for CSA and they can easily do live-streaming coverage of the games.

But SuperSport, even though they have no desire to broadcast the four-day competition, are being dog in the manger and have refused to allow the footage to be made available to the public.

There is considerable interest among the South African public in following these games, and not only in this country either: When PitchVision live-streamed the series between the South African and Pakistani women’s teams,
there were four million viewers across the series from all over the world.

That should interest multinational sponsors.

They can easily install five HD cameras at a ground for only a fraction of the cost of a big TV production and there are already digital radio commentators lining up to get involved.

One can only hope the greater good of the game holds sway and the tentative steps that are apparently being made towards live-streaming the Four-Day Franchise Series become major strides in the near future.

Ken Borland is The Citizen’s Chief Cricket Writer.

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