Unplugged by BBK: Yuck Zak, your dishonourable diatribe stinks

Chiselling a path anew for the organisation caught in the cobwebs of a never-ending season of scandal is what any sane person would have expected to be the approach adopted by the interim board chairperson of Cricket SA (CSA).

Right? Wrong. Grossly so.

With a man like retired judge Zak Yacoob at the helm, it looks like hope of the embattled CSA turning its direction to a new terrain devoid of disgrace is but a pipe dream.

The retired judge Yacoob, probably cooked up in cabin pressure owing to lockdown restrictions on movement, dispensed with his sense of judgment when dealing with one of the reporters in our sports stable.

Rather than engage the content of Tiisetso Malepa's questions, Yacoob threw a torrent of abuse at the reporter.

Jerr, he was so uncivil it bordered on the uncouth in a rant in which his choice of words was stuff more suitable for a one-eyed, brown-toothed, stinky-breathed sailor.

Instead of coming up with a coherent response to the shenanigans of a stew of shame being cooked in that CSA kitchen, Yacoob resorted to flaunting his struggle credentials at Malepa. (See page 22).

Does his worship expect to be worshipped? This is the kind of diatribe one would not associate with a judge. Rather it is trash talk you expect to be spewed by a judge who had several spots of tea.

Thankfully he was not driving. Otherwise he could have crashed his car into someone's wall, if you catch my drift.

His was a performance of conduct unbecoming. It left one to conclude that anyone who wants to see an embodiment of arrogance on two feet best look no further than Yacoob.

The irony is that he was in the struggle against an apartheid government that used the same and even worse intimidating tactics to silence the media.

Now that he has some power at CSA he feels entitled to throw his weight around. Just because he struggled. Get out of here.

This attitude of people who think that they are gods among flies and untouchable just because they struggled must be hit for a six.

Yacoob's conduct should cause alarm bells to ring for those who entrusted him with heading the interim board.

If this man can deem it fit to deal with a journalist in this manner, you can only feel sorry for his colleagues.

It is seriously concerning that the leader of a team of people put together to clean up the mess created by their predecessors is displaying a tendency of being problematic himself.

The temerity to call one of the editors to complain that our journalists don't wait for the press release.

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The journalists are not an extension of the interim board's comical communications department headed by Judith February, who seems to be Yacoob's enforcer.

Reporters will report. You don't say jump and they must be already in mid-air before they ask you, "how high, your worship?".

There are appropriate avenues to address issues when they have stepped out of line. Yacoob can't take up any issue to those structures because Malepa didn't commit any misdemeanour. All he did was ask him questions.

Sports minister Nathi Mthethwa must rein in this bull in a china shop.

He must look at the ungentlemanly behaviour of a man he has entrusted with the responsibility of rebuilding the administration of the gentlemen's game.

Unless he is comfortable with his name being evoked when people behave uncouthly.

Oh, another thing: is the recycling of Haroon Lorgat necessary? Surely cricket can look beyond him, no?

Unless he was anointed, in our absence of course, as the alpha and omega of cricket in the country.

He has never declared himself one. But one wants to believe there are many other people with the know-how.

In any case, one has to question the wisdom of bringing someone with a cloud over their head to spearhead a crucial task of clearing the cobwebs in the house of cricket which has resembled nothing but a circus ring in recent times.

Twitter: @bbkunplugged99