Cricket South Africa will have us believe that the future of the game in this country hinges on a successful staging of their new franchise T20 tournament.
We learned this after CSA announced they would be forfeiting the January 2023 ODI series in Australia, which was part of the Cricket World Cup Super League.
The decision will almost certainly consign the Proteas to the indignity of playing in the qualifying tournament and puts their place in the 2023 Cricket World Cup in doubt.
What is bizarre about this assertion, is that despite already having SuperSport on board for this tournament, we are yet to see the event promoted in any way by its organisers CSA.
CSA are hoping against hope that cricket fans simply do the leg work for them despite their proposed tournament offering nothing unique or interesting.
There has been a lot of change at CSA in the last 18 months but as the saying goes, ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’.
CSA were driven to the brink of ruin by the foolishness of the Global T20 League and it seems that if any lessons were learned, they are now being disregarded.
A successful national team would be a far greater boon to CSA than yet another T20 tournament to jam into an already overcrowded calendar.
T20 cricket is played around the world in some form or another almost constantly and that means for a new tournament to be successful, it really has to stand out from the crowd.
CSA’s new tournament has, so far, shown no signs of being any different from their previous efforts which were underwhelming, poorly coordinated and generated next to no interest.
The Proteas probably will reach the World Cup, but once again, if they do, it will be despite being actively hampered by a board that continues to demonstrate that it is totally out of touch with cricket fans in South Africa.
It might be a stretch to say that our national team is being sabotaged by the board of the federation they represent, but time and again CSA give us cause for grave concern.
Failure to reach the World Cup would be financially ruinous for CSA.
The cause was previously put at risk by idiotic scheduling, which saw a key home series against Bangladesh clash with the IPL.
The fallout from that saga also unfairly fell on players, who were asked to put their own financial future at risk because CSA didn’t understand that the IPL is one of the biggest things in cricket.
You don’t even need to be a fan of cricket to grasp that concept, and yet it escaped CSA just as the importance of reaching a Cricket World Cup seems to have eluded them in the midst of their T20 fantasy.
From what we currently know about this situation, cricket fans in South Africa have every reason to fear that the revolution is a lie.
CSA shouldn’t be putting all their eggs in this T20 basket, instead the performance of our national men’s and women’s teams should be the priority.
The cricketing world will not take note of a second-rate T20 franchise tournament in a mid-tier nation.
Our Proteas must be world-beaters for cricket in South Africa to be sustainable.
Continued grassroots developments, and the aims of transformation of the game, can only be achieved through investment attracted by men and women in green and gold taking on the world and winning.
The first order of business for CSA should be restoring its relationship with the player’s union SACA, something that will be key for both the establishment of a new T20 tournament and the aims of getting the Proteas’ teams firing.
Is it too much to ask that this game we love be run by people who share that affection?
