Three cricket boards across the world are in the news over the last few days. They are the Australian board, the English board and the South African board. All of them are for different reasons. Some makes sense and some does not really.
The Australian cricket board
The ACB have ringed in changes in the contract system after the disastrous home season. They lost 2 of the 3 series against India with the test series loss coming against an Indian D side. Naturally, heads are bound to roll. The Australian cricketing scenario is not really flush with talents. Nonetheless, the existing players were either promoted or relegated from their existing contracts.
Some of the players who have lost their contracts like Travis Head is along the expected lines. As was Joe Burns. Head was thought of an captaincy option but his failure to score anything during the series naturally ruled him out of the contract.
However, the surprising omission was Will Pucovski. He is a promising young player. He made his test debut against India and scored an impressive 60 odd. Unfortunately, he was injured after that test. The injury has ruled him out of getting a contract. This is ridiculous. Australia, which is not exactly brimming with talent, finds one good young player but he is not given a contract because he is injured. This is stupid. Infact, Will’s injury must have ensured that he was awarded a contract.
The Australian board have seen his talent. He is someone who must be groomed for the long run and as such he must feel financially secured. What does the Australian board do? They do not even offer him a contract. What if there are already 17 players centrally contracted? Why cannot the board extend that to 20 or 25 players? One can only hope that Will takes this as personal injustice and comes back stronger.
The English cricket board
Ed Smith will no longer be a national selector. His tenure has been terminated after 3 years. Ed Smith was the chief selector with Chris Silverwood assisting him in selection. Now, Chris Silverwood, the current national coach of the English team has been given overwhelming authority and has been made the sole authority to select the players who can represent England in international games. Ashley Giles the current managing director of English cricket said,
“The current process of selecting England teams has been in place for over 120 years,” said Giles. “With advances in technology and a greater information gathering resource at our disposal than ever before, the restructure is in the best interests of helping England men’s teams be successful.”
Silverwood will be advised by Morgan for the limited overs squad and Root for the test squad. It remains to be seen how a single person will be able to select the squads in all the formats though he will be advised by 2 captains. This is likely to lead to certain conflict of interests because the coach is too close to the action to select the squad without the assistance or influence of someone who is outside of the team.
Calls to drop Graeme Smith
Alviro Petersen, the former South African opener, has called on Graeme Smith to be replaced because with him being a good friend of Boucher, who is the current South African coach, it is unlikely Smith will remove Boucher as the coach and that his friendship with Boucher is to the detriment of the team itself.
“Unfortunately‚ Mark Boucher and Graeme Smith have a very good and friendly relationship since their playing days and it is highly unlikely that Smith will fire his friend. Unfortunately that is the position that we are in as a cricketing country and we have to deal with that.”
The South African team have lost eight out of the eleven series since Boucher took over. Smith was brought precisely to avoid this kind of a run but I think Smith is helpless. South Africa, with their quota system and player exodus is not really brimming with talent and confidence. It must be noted that out of the eight, most of them were outside South Africa and teams nowadays are not that good travellers. The series loss to Pakistan at home came in ODIs and T20s were the South African team did not have their main players.
Petersen must realise that South African team is losing not because of want of trying but because there simply aren’t enough quality players. Even the few good ones like Markaram is taking a long time to mature.
A good and strong South African side is certainly required for international cricket to thrive and survive. For that, they will have to look at their first class system and maybe just maybe, the quota system must be replaced with merit based selection.
Other articles about South African cricket can be read here and here.