South Africa: New Year of changes

As South Africa celebrated, along with New Zealand (against India) and England (against Australia), an impressive victory at the end of 1998, the Caribbean players contemplated an uncertain future far from their islands in the sun. Populations large and small felt let down and disappointed by a side which promised much but has failed to deliver anything other than inadequate excuses for a succession of tardy performances.

A harsh view? Hardly as the spoils of victory, having already gone to South Africa, turns an even brighter spotlight on Brian Lara's discredited troupe. Prophecy, ranging from Lara stepping down (or being sacked) as captain to a serious reorganising of the side under new management has left an ugly stain on what was once an illustrious team. Changing The Management is not going to help. No one can point a finger at either Clive Lloyd (manager) or Malcolm Marshall (coach) for the failure of this motley crew to rise above the mediocre and challenge a well-balanced South African side led by Hansie Cronje.

Apart from self-indulgent noises coming from an interesting group of ANC political bedfellows whose dichotomy is as pronounced as are the divisions in the West Indies side, Cronje's team are basking not so much in reflected glory as critical acclaim as the fourth test at Newlands starts to unfold. Not that Cape Town's English media, in searching for answers for the Windies failure, have shown they are proud of Cronje's side. Far from it.

There is a distinct impression they are pretty upset that South Africa have shown up a West Indies team which is starting to become a major embarrassment. The perception is they would have preferred a 3-0 result favouring the tourists: a misplaced cockeyed view if there was one.

This sadly echoes the view of Ashwin Desai, a columnist in a Durban Saturday news sheet. Here is another who finds fault with anything which hints of the success of Cronje's side to distributing the sort of rhetoric which says transformation (or development) is not so much a question of working to improve the demographics as working against it.

It is a chip on the shoulder attitude. And one which suggests that a century from Basil D'Oliveira on matting would have been better to watch than anything Barry Richards could have put together on one of dung heaps which passed for a turfed surface at some remote county ground in the late 1960s. Both innings would have been works of skilled art and attempts to place one ahead of the other is typically muddled hegemony.

Yet imagine Richards and D'Oliveira batting together for South Africa. Such a partnership, had it been possible, would be more of an inspiration for unification than any diatribe on the wrongs of the present being blamed on the inequalities of the past.

However, with the National Sports Council (NSC) likely to be disbanded under the Department of Sports commission, those such as Mluleki George (NSC president) must be seen to making the right noises in support of Steve Tshwete, the Minister of Sport. As Lulu Xingwana, whose port folio as the chairperson of the parliamentary committee of sport is also under threat, the bigger the noise the more embarrassment they cause the young people whom they are supposed to represent.

Such politicians should move on and political thought should make way for the more balanced views of those who would encourage the growth of transformation and demographic harmony in South African cricket. In The Times (of London) a senior sports writer Michael Henderson, Down Under for the Ashes series, suggests under a headline that ``English cricket is now so devalued that it has become a laughing stock''. It echoes the current demise of Lara's side. Henderson, quoting liberally from an article by the perceptive Mike Coward of The Australian, comments that ``tradition and sentiment alone are not enough to sustain the Ashes.''

Written as it was on the eve of the fourth Test at Melbourne which was won by England, it chided a well-beaten side into staging a comeback. It was a victory which cheered many and the boozy Barmy Army joined in belching out a rather off-key ``Land of Hope and Glory''.

Lara's tour of South Africa was to have been an historic event: a celebration of politically correct demographics; it has now lost its relevance and the tourists a serious embarrassment to their host. It was perhaps the reason for a perceived reverse two-finger salute to Lara and Co by the United Cricket Board when they decided to allow the game against South Africa A in Pietermaritzburg to start at 1pm on the first day. The UCB could have told those provinces involved not to play their A Team players in the domestic limited-overs slogs competition, with the game starting on time.

It needs to be admitted, however, that the loss of Jimmy Adams before the tour to a freak accident has gone some way to undermined the strength of team's fragile middle-order.

Yet, if this is the best the West Indies have, forget it. Even with Adams they are not as good as Lawrence Rowe's rebel sides which toured South Africa during the grim era of pirate tours. Those teams of 1982/83 and the following summer were more competitive with a pace attack better in strength than Lara now has under his command.

Sylvester Clarke, Ezra Moseley and Hartley Allayne were a feared trio who bowled South Africa into submission on a St George's Park pitch which was as flat as the Park Drive road outside the ground.

So as England work for a victory in Sydney to level the series the West Indies, still seeking an effective game plan, are already looking ahead to the matches against Mark Taylor's Wizards of Oz. Hopefully to recover some pride for those unhappy islands in the sun.

In New Zealand the Kiwis, mindful of the visit by South Africa later next month, want to clinch the series against India to toughen them for the Tests in Auckland, Christchurch and Wellington.

All which seems to have escaped the attentions of the politicians who find only fault in what the UCB achieve or do in the final 12 months of the century.

As Coward comments in The Australian, South Africa's administrators, left to their own inventive strategies, have something serious to offer the long-term welfare of the game. They have, with those of the Asian sub-continent, a growing sense of presence of what to do and why. While the detractors in certain sections of the South African English media, notably in Cape Town and Durban to a lesser extent, take a parochial view as they pull apart the UCB's role, those in Sri Lanka and India welcome the South African input. They too care about the reconstruction of the game and its long-term development to meet the challenges of the millennium.

So, as we welcome 1999 and the excitement of what a new year may bring as well as the World Cup, perhaps the West Indies need to take serious note of what they have not achieved on this first Test tour of South Africa. In February and March 2001 Cronje, or whoever has taken over, will lead a team to the Caribbean which should, by then contain a fair sprinkling of quality South African (black) players.

It is hoped that Herschelle Gibbs' words of ``I thought I was a South African and selected on merit'' may be the norm. For the sake of South Africa's future it needs to be.