No more using cricket at their leisure for miscreant administrators

The days of the “Cricket Capturers” using the game for their own benefit at their leisure would appear to be coming to an end after Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa on Friday announced a Cricket South Africa interim board of directors that boasts a fearsome array of skills to block the selfish ambitions of even the most determined of parasitic administrators.

Retired Constitutional Court Justice Judge Zak Yacoob will chair the board and given the stature of the man and the moral leadership he has already brought to the country, malfeasance will be given short shrift under his watch.

It is especially pleasing to see Omphile Ramela, the president of the players’ union (the South African Cricketers’ Association), on the board. At just 32 years old, Ramela is still an active player, scoring 75 for Gauteng in his last match just before lockdown, but it is probably fair to say that the best days of this former SA A batsman’s playing career are probably over. I have long felt that Ramela is just the sort of person the CSA Board needs – young, erudite, well-qualified (with a Master’s degree in Economics) and with a strong cricketing background.

As Mthethwa stressed on Friday, Ramela will now need to step down as the president of SACA to avoid any conflicts of interest, but I am excited to see the contribution he can now make in the boardroom. He has been a brave, outspoken critic of CSA for a few years now, so I am sure that he will have a powerful voice on the interim board.

I am also delighted to see Judith February appointed. A lawyer by training and a governance expert, February works for the Nelson Mandela Foundation and the Institute for Security Studies, while writing part-time for numerous publications on social and governance issues. Watching cricket seems to be one of her favourite recreations and, judging by her outstanding critiques of CSA in publications such as The Daily Maverick, she certainly has her finger on the pulse.

I was shocked – although also chuffed – to hear Haroon Lorgat’s name announced. As the previous CEO before all the shenanigans started at CSA, and a victim of what amounted to a coup by the “Cricket Capturers”, Lorgat probably is conflicted, but those who are up to no good in CSA will not be sleeping easy knowing that he is now on the interim board.

Knowing Lorgat’s assiduous attention to detail, he won’t be wasting any time either in presenting a formidable case for a large-scale clean-up to Yacoob and the other ‘independents’ nominated by the Department of Sports, Arts and Culture – Caroline Mampuru, the deputy head of the Special Investigative Unit, and Stavros Nicolaou, a senior executive for a major pharmaceutical company.

One of the major criticisms of the previous directors of CSA and their enablers on the Members Council has been how lily-livered they have been in dealing with obvious flouting of good governance rules and even though one of the old guard, former Easterns president Xolani Vonya, has made it on to the interim board, I expect the recalcitrant administrators who want to keep CSA as their own gravy train are going to wilt like pansies in the blazing heat of the subcontinent in the face of the integrity and quality of the rest of the directors.

The other Members Council nominations were Andre Odendaal, a good cricket man who has been involved at almost every level of the game – a first-class player, an administrator and a renowned historian, especially when it comes to black cricket; and Andile Dawn Mbatha, a high-ranking financial official at the Independent Electoral Commission. A look at her social media interactions makes one wonder if she is not just another Dr Eugenia – all I could see was expensive cars, lots of selfies, retweets of EFF posts and the occasional football mention – but let’s hope not. She is also listed on the National Treasury’s e-tender website as being the recipient of a government tender.

After the enormous con that the former Cricket South Africa Board has been, we can only cheer the good and capable people who have been willing to stand for this interim board and wish them all the best in cleaning up the mess, stench and decay of the boardroom that has become the public image of CSA.

They are obviously not going to be able to produce overnight miracles and the presence and obstinacy of so many of the old guard on the Members Council could slow the pace of reform, but the intervention of the Sports Minister does now seem to have borne some fruit.

Ken Borland.

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