Politics still bedevils cricket

New CSA board's priority, once the chairmanship issue is resolved, is to darken the complexion of an unbearably light test team

CRICKET SA faces a barrage of challenges in 2013. For the game not to go backwards, CSA and those who represent it in a suit and tie as well as in gloves and pads will need to succeed in all of these areas:

• Nail down the new board structure to prevent further instances of poor corporate governance.
• Improve the national team's transformation record, especially regarding black Africans.
• Win the Champions Trophy, or at least go down fighting in the final.
• Retain the No1 test ranking.

For some, that priority list is upside down. For others, it is scrambled. For still others, it is incomplete or too long. That alone illustrates SA cricket's major problem - it is not unified in any meaningful sense.

South Africans do not love cricket. They love their own corner of cricket. When they discover that terrain is contested, they protect what they perceive as theirs to the detriment of others who also have vested interests in the game.

This is cricket's lot as the most integrated sport in the country.

Its factions all have significant strength that cannot be ignored.

That makes cricket's politics more volatile than those of any other high-profile sport in the country.

And, in a society that has never earned the trust of its citizens, sport and politics should not be separated.

The politics of cricket will reach an important stage on January 9 when CSA's board will meet to try to find a compromise between the Nicholson recommendation that the organisation be chaired by an independent director - which CSA have moved to implement - and the SA Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee's insistence that the chairman should be a serving cricket administrator.

A middle road between those two poles will be difficult to plot and complicated by the fact that Norman Arendse is the nominated chairman.

Powerful figures in CSA can't stand the chairman they have been forced to nominate - the same chairman who had to enlist the intervention of Sascoc, who don't want Arendse as chairman because he is not an active administrator, to go to arbitration and ensure he remained the nominated chairman.

The mind-boggling chairmanship issue is the only remaining significant dispute between CSA and Sascoc over the make-up of the new board, which Nicholson said should have a significant independent component.

If that means Sascoc's fears over the size of the provinces' representation have been assuaged, CSA's hopes for a more streamlined board can only have been dashed.

The new board's first order of business should be to darken the complexion - by order, if necessary - of an unbearably light SA test team.

When the Proteas take the field against New Zealand at Newlands on Wednesday, it will be exactly two years since their dressing room was last darkened by a black African in a test.

That is an indictment of CSA's transformation record, but the shame will be Sascoc's if they ignore this dismal situation because the Proteas are winning. They are likely to continue to succeed in a year in which their test opponents are New Zealand, Pakistan, home and away, and India.

"SA can consolidate in terms of retaining the No1 ranking; it all looks healthy and strong," said Peter Kirsten. "2013 is an opportunity for them to get stuck in and build on their victories in England and Australia this year."

What of the Champions Trophy in England in May and June?

"Perhaps bringing on some of the youngsters is the way to go," said Kirsten. "Henry Davids is looking good, and Faf du Plessis has already shown what happens if a bit of faith is shown.

"We need the kids to come through, and when they get to tournaments, they need to play without fear."

CSA's new board must act with faith and without fear. None of this will matter if they don't.