In its search for excellence, Cricket South Africa has convened another committee to examine the state of domestic cricket.
CSA announced on Friday that it had gathered together ‘stakeholders’, who includes journalists, commentators, coaches and players to undertake a ‘comprehensive review’ of the local game.
Earlier this year, CSA appointed the chairman of the transformation committee, Norman Arendse, as head a task team to address the grievances voiced by black African cricketers. This was sparked by a group of cricketers calling themselves Black Players in Unity, who wrote a letter to CSA detailing their concerns at being picked in national squads but not playing enough games.
Last week, Lorgat named a four-strong team to examine the performances of the national teams. Headed by the chairperson of CSA’s HR committee, Dawn Mokhobo, it included World Cup-winning rugby captain Francois Pienaar, sports physiologist Dr Ross Tucker and former Proteas player Adam Bacher.
At the announcement, Loorgat said: ‘Our recent performances resulting in early exits for all our national teams at the World T20 and the U19 World Cup is clearly not acceptable. This calls for us to conduct a clinical review into the national set-up and performances of the various teams.’
In the press statement released on Friday, Lorgat said: ‘With our men’s team consistently ranked among the best in the world across all three formats and our women’s team steadily improving, our development pipeline and the cricket system as a whole has been, to date, reasonably successful.’
However, he added: ‘Given changing global dynamics and our unique socio-political context in SA, we need to be proactive and ensure that our domestic system remains relevant and productive on a sustainable basis into the foreseeable future.’
The new probe is being conducted by an advisory firm, EY, to guide and facilitate the process. The EY team is led by Michael Lalor, director of strategy. He has 18 years of consulting experience both locally and abroad, and is a skilled strategic facilitator.
‘Two critical factors are the need to give all South Africans access to our great game and at the same time pursue standards of excellence. Our goal is to get the perfect balance between player access and performance excellence,’ Lorgat said.
‘The objective of this review is to ensure that the system continues to transform and sustainably produce winning players and teams that can compete with the best in the world.’
The core team consists of HD Ackerman, Shukri Conrad, Stuart Hess, Tony Irish, Marc Jury, Shaheed Khan, Malibongwe Maketa, Hussein Manack, Niels Momberg, Victor Mpitsang, Ashwell Prince, Omphile Ramela and Rob Walter.
As with the international cricket review there will be no time frame placed on the process. However, this review is expected to be completed before the start of the new season.
