Proteas batsman Rassie van der Dussen usually plays with a perfectly straight bat but on Tuesday he slashed at a few wide ones in his assessment of off-field issues at Cricket South Africa.
It has certainly been a winter of discontent for South African cricket as those charged with navigating the sport in difficult times – even before the coronavirus pandemic struck – were embroiled in unsightly leadership battles.
Cricket South Africa’s so-called leadership, spent much of the year, clinging to power in the face of mounting evidence that it was not fit for the job. An independent forensic audit investigating the management and operational failures of the sport documented many of those shortcomings in 478-damning pages.
But even with the evidence contained in the report, the CSA Members Council tried to wriggle out of what was obvious if the health of the game was a priority – the organisation needed a cleanout.
It eventually took government intervention through Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa to shuck to the barnacle-like Members Council from the sinking CSA ship. And just in the nick of time.
While all these self-serving “leaders” were engaged in job preservation, all South Africa’s professional cricketers watched from their…
