Putting mediocre men on pedestals is as good as it gets

Dark days indeed for a disorganised, racially divided sporting code with an uncertain future

ON A rainy February day in 1905, the mayor of Port Elizabeth unveiled a horse memorial just outside St George's Park. The statue was erected to commemorate the role played by horses in the Anglo Boer war, many of which came ashore at Port Elizabeth harbour.

Underneath the memorial (which has since been moved to a location on Cape Road) are the words: "The greatness of a nation depends not so much upon the number of its people or its territory, as in the extent and justice of its compassion."

Civic-minded citizens often used to go in for such gestures. It was the good women of Port Elizabeth, in fact, who raised the £800 needed to erect the memorial. It even inspired debate, the townsfolk arguing as to whether there should be a drinking trough for animals and a tap for humans at the statue's base.

If a statue was erected outside St George's today, who would it depict? Khaya Majola? His brother Gerald? The Pollock brothers, Graeme and Peter? One of the Eastern Cape's famous sons, Johan Botha or Lonwabo Tsotsobe, both likely to play in today's second ODI against Australia?

I ask because the erection of statues presupposes a degree of consensus. In order to cast a statue we need first to agree on who is worthy of memorialisation in statue form. I suspect there would be so much argument that there would be no statue. Rather we'd find ourselves with a generic construct, cricket's equivalent of the unknown soldier.

"Here stands cricket's undistinguished allrounder - he was sublime with neither bat nor ball; he was a mediocre fielder and famous for offending no one."

In considering whether a statue to the undistinguished allrounder would actually get off the ground (as it were), I'm probably being a trifle optimistic. There's little we can agree on in cricket nowadays, except perhaps that Graeme Smith's current meander down the corridor of uncertainty seems to be excruciating for him and his fans alike.

These are dark days indeed. Fikile Mbalula, the minister of sport who announced an investigation into the game's mess, received death threats this week.

Club cricket in Gauteng is so racially divided that there is talk that some of the previously white clubs will secede. A prominent club chairman told me that the letter signed by 11 club chairmen and sent to the Gauteng Cricket Board (GCB) was indicative of a broader groundswell.

"The guys who wrote the letter don't want to be quiet - they've had enough."

The Gauteng Premier League's two divisions might not last the season.

Elsewhere, in schoolboy cricket, the absence of decent black schoolboy cricketers is reaching scandalous proportions, a sure indication that this generation of administrators and their predecessors allowed development targets to slip horribly.

As far as Gary Kirsten and the Proteas are concerned, you can already feel the ebbing of patience. Kirsten is a much-loved son. He needs time. But patience and the local fan go together like a Free Stater and the Union Jack.

More pertinently, perhaps, is that the side are under-prepared. Dale Steyn should have played SuperSport Series cricket for his nominal province, the Cobras, last weekend, as should have Smith.

What we've found is a galvanised Australia - powerful, hungry, prepared.

So far, no local hero has stepped forward indicating he's worthy of the St George's Park statue. If the current negativity continues, we'll have to opt for the compromise candidate - the undistinguished allrounder.