Read The Shorter Wisden 2013 Online
Authors: John Wisden,Co
There was concern about the bowling depth, with Marchant de Lange – who had made a sensational debut in the last Test of 2011 – not playing at all after pulling out of the England
tour with a stress fracture. Rory Kleinveldt played in two Tests in Australia with mixed success.
Under the new leadership of de Villiers, South Africa won eight one-day internationals and lost four, winning series against Sri Lanka and New Zealand, and sharing the honours in England. Amla
top-scored in the last two matches in New Zealand, and in all four innings in England, to set a world record. But an ongoing problem was the lack of an effective bowling combination at the
death.
The biggest disappointment came at the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka. After winning both their group matches, including a rain-shortened encounter against the hosts, South Africa lost all three in
the Super Eights, against Pakistan, Australia and India. Poor starts with the bat, and equally poor bowling towards the end of innings, were largely to blame.
The cricket took place against a backdrop of legal wrangling over the dismissal of chief executive Gerald Majola, and controversy over the implementation of a new system of administration.
Cricket South Africa’s annual general meeting, normally held in August, was postponed twice, the second time until February 2013, by which time the presidency and the chief executive’s
role had been in the hands of acting-officials for almost a year.
In what should have been an end to a saga that started when South Africa hosted the IPL in 2009, Judge Chris Nicholson’s findings after a ministerial enquiry were damning of Majola. He
recommended a criminal investigation and disciplinary action by CSA following Majola’s pocketing of undeclared bonuses. Majola refused to take part in the hearing, which recommended he be
sacked, choosing instead to take the matter to the Labour Court in Johannesburg.
Nicholson recommended an overhaul of the system of governance, with a majority of independent directors. CSA initially opted for an even split, but it was not a universally popular decision.
When the annual meeting was finally held on February 2, 2013, a split of seven non-independent and five independent directors was approved. Chris Nenzani, a relative newcomer to administration who
had been president of the Border Cricket Board since 2010, was elected president.
Norman Arendse, a former president of CSA, was elected lead independent director. A nomination panel had initially recommended him, but this was vetoed by CSA on the grounds that he had recently
been involved in cricket. He challenged the ruling and was eventually accepted as a director. Arendse’s tenure as CSA president between 2007 and 2008 was notable for acrimony and alleged
interference in selection.
Jacques Faul, the acting-chief executive, made no secret of his frustration with the ongoing wrangling, and announced he would not be available for a full-time role at national level. Instead he
was named chief executive of the Northerns Union.
Yet another cloud on the horizon was a row over the non-selection of Thami Tsolekile for the Test series against New Zealand in January 2013. Tsolekile had been told he would probably take over
behind the stumps after the Australia series, only for de Villiers to decide he wanted to keep wicket on a long-term basis. With no black African players in the squad, the controversy became a
racial issue. Makhaya Ntini, the only black African to have made a major impact in international cricket, claimed Tsolekile would have been picked if he had been white.
In South Africa, cricket is seldom a matter of simply playing the game.
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Sri Lanka moved into 2013 hoping that the lion’s share of the independent report submitted by former ICC chief executive Haroon Lorgat would be implemented to streamline
administration and make the board more financially viable. Sri Lanka Cricket had hired the services of Lorgat, an accountant, in July in the face of mounting debts and heavy overstaffing. He was
given three months to talk to stakeholders, and had access to financial accounts.
His report, delivered in November, was welcomed by sports minister Mahindananda Aluthgamage, who wanted several of the recommendations to be pushed through – chief among them to make
cricket exempt from the Sports Law that governs every sporting body in Sri Lanka (which requires the sports minister to approve major selectorial decisions).
All in all, 2012 turned out to be an uncomfortable year, beginning as it did with the sacking of head coach Geoff Marsh, and ending with a dismal innings defeat in the Boxing Day Test at
Melbourne. But the most serious blow came in between, when Sri Lanka failed to win the World Twenty20 in home conditions. Defeat by West Indies in Colombo was the fourth time in five years they had
lost a major tournament final.
Like Marsh, who unsuccessfully sought legal redress for his removal, Tillekeratne Dilshan paid with his position as captain after the South Africa tour of 2011-12, having presided over four
straight series defeats in both Tests and one-day internationals. Mahela Jayawardene agreed to come back in his place for one year, until the end of the tour of Australia in January 2013. Angelo
Mathews took over, with Dinesh Chandimal becoming captain of the Twenty20 team. Changes also came in the selection committee, with Ashantha de Mel returning as chairman in place of Duleep Mendis.
Marsh’s replacement, the South African Graham Ford, had become the fourth man to coach Sri Lanka since the 2011 World Cup. He fitted in well, and helped turn the players into a more
professional unit.
Under the new structure, Sri Lanka were able at least to arrest their run of Test defeats. At home, they drew 1–1 with England, beat Pakistan, then drew – disappointingly, perhaps
– with New Zealand. For this, they were indebted to the flourishing of left-arm spinner Rangana Herath at the age of 34. Though a slightly ungainly, round-arm bowler, he took five six-wicket
hauls in the home Tests, not always with the help of the DRS. He finished with more Test wickets in the year (60) than anyone, and at a strike-rate of 53, two better than Muttiah
Muralitharan’s career figure. The rest of Sri Lanka’s bowlers took only 79 wickets between them, with Suraj Randiv the next-highest on 22. He could have done with help from elsewhere,
but only Kumar Sangakkara and Mathews averaged above 40 with the bat.
After seven years of government-appointed interim committees, SLC finally held an annual general meeting in January 2012. The change of attitude followed an ICC resolution that all member boards
should be free of political interference. But amid allegations of voter intimidation, Upali Dharmadasa – SLC president from 1996–98, and interim committee chairman before it was
dissolved – won uncontested when his chief rival for the presidency, Thilanga Sumathipala, withdrew. In fact, all the opposition candidates withdrew in protest, and all the main office
bearers were elected uncontested, in a process presided over by the sports ministry.
The first task of this new committee was to clear a deficit approaching $70m, mostly a result of constructing new venues at Hambantota and Pallekele, and renovating Colombo’s Premadasa
Stadium for the 2011 World Cup. “It will be a struggle for about five years,” predicted Dharmadasa, whose request for financial assistance from the government was turned down.
SLC had not had enough money to pay the salaries of their employees and 100 contracted cricketers since the World Cup. However, Aluthgamage negotiated with the state-owned Bank of Ceylon to
release SLRs600m ($5.07m) to SLC. This, coupled with the 42% of World Cup participation fees which the ICC paid directly to the players’ accounts in December 2011, allowed the outstanding
dues to be settled. By cutting down on administrative overheads and contracted players, as well as receiving revenues from hosting a one-day tour by India and the World Twenty20, SLC managed to
clear some of their deficit.
The inaugural Sri Lankan Premier League was supposed to rake in more money, although it had been in danger of not getting off the ground when SLC ran into a contractual issue with their
international players. Somerset Entertainment Ventures, a sporting business company based in Singapore, secured SLPL rights for the next seven years, guaranteeing SLC $4m each year. The timing of
the tournament, two months before the World Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, failed to entice the spectators, although several international cricketers – especially Pakistanis ostracised from the IPL
– appeared for the seven teams involved. Sri Lanka managed to unearth two new players: opener Dilshan Munaweera and spinner Akila Dananjaya both featured in the World Twenty20.
SLC sacrificed two Tests in the Caribbean and a three-Test home series against South Africa scheduled for 2013 in order to accommodate the IPL and a triangular one-day series. Sri Lanka’s
Test calendar was looking empty. SLC came in for severe criticism from past players and administrators for undermining Test cricket. The debacle at Melbourne, where Sri Lanka lost inside three
days, was cited as evidence that they needed to play more Tests to be rated among the top nations. That was a battle the Dharmadasa administration had to wage against a sagging bank balance.
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For West Indies Cricket Board president Julian Hunte it was “a watershed year” for the sport in the Caribbean. The region was, he declared in his annual review,
“better positioned for the rest of the decade on many fronts”. And there certainly was a climate of rare optimism. Hunte’s confidence was predicated on victory at the World
Twenty20 in Sri Lanka, as well as a lucrative agreement with Taj TV for global rights for the next seven years which, he said, would ensure West Indies’ financial viability. Another
potentially profitable deal was done with Verus International, a merchant bank based in New York and Barbados, for a license to operate a private, professional Twenty20 league of six city-based
franchise teams, to replace the WICB’s existing tournament from October 2013.
Ajmal Khan, the chief executive of Verus, proclaimed his intention to make the Caribbean Premier League “one of the most enviable franchises anywhere in the world”, and said he would
invest “whatever it takes, in the hundreds of millions” to ensure its success. These were phrases that might have come straight from Allen Stanford’s handbook of hyperbole but,
following their blessing of Stanford 20/20, which had embarrassingly crashed three years earlier after the fraudulent Texan’s arrest and 110-year sentence, the WICB emphasised they had
thoroughly verified Verus’s credentials.
West Indies cricket, though, was still riddled with weaknesses. The game at regional level remained substandard, hampered by poor pitches and unreliable umpiring. The WICB, meanwhile, were mired
in the past: for the second time, they rejected the main proposals of a report commissioned by Hunte himself, which called upon the board to modernise their structure and governance. The successive
resignations of the constantly quarrelling chief executives – Dinanath Ramnarine of the West Indies Players’ Association, and the WICB’s Ernest Hilaire – at least brought a
welcome period of détente between the union and the board, but WIPA’s two lawsuits against the WICB, one seeking $20m for restraint of trade, carried over into 2013.
More than a year after the Guyanese government had replaced the WICB’s affiliate board with an interim management committee, no settlement of the dispute was in sight; the upshot was a
moratorium on all regional and international matches in Guyana, a country that had staged their inaugural first-class match in 1865, and the first of their 32 Tests in 1930.
The widespread euphoria at the Twenty20 title was reflected in an editorial in the
Trinidad Express
, which declared it had “lifted the spirit of the entire region as one”.
The reaction was much the same after West Indies’ victory in the 2004 Champions Trophy; but that had quickly dissipated into the distress of disputes and defeat. This time, the victory was
straddled by a pair of 2–0 Test wins, over New Zealand and Bangladesh. And a 2–1 home success for West Indies A in unofficial Tests against India A added a little more substance to the
excitement. However, a 3–2 one-day loss in Bangladesh brought the year to an unsatisfactory end.
In the more difficult Test assignments, West Indies lost 2–0 both to Australia at home and England away. Still, they took all but one of the six games in those two series to the fifth day
– a detail that, in the context of recent history, was confirmation West Indies had grown increasingly competitive; Australia’s coach Mickey Arthur said they had “gone toe-to-toe
with us”. And that was without three key players – Chris Gayle (reinstated midway through the England tour through the intervention of two prime ministers after a lengthy standoff with
the WICB), Marlon Samuels and Sunil Narine (both engaged in the IPL, Narine triumphantly so).
Four wins in ten Tests exactly doubled the 2011 ratio, while 14 hundreds were spread among seven different batsmen; only three had scored centuries the previous year. Samuels was the star. His
renaissance after a two-year suspension for suspected dealings with an Indian bookmaker was a tribute to his determination, and an example to others. The overdue fulfilment of his dormant class
brought an awesome striking power to an uncertain middle order. He amassed 866 runs in seven Tests, including a double-hundred and two singles; his
pièce de résistance
was
the breathtaking 78 off 56 balls that stunned Sri Lanka in the World Twenty20 final. But a fracas with Shane Warne in the 2012-13 Big Bash in Australia showed he could still be needled by the
opposition.
Shivnarine Chanderpaul kept churning out runs, as he had for most of his 18 years as West Indies’ impenetrable wall. No longer burdened with the white-ball game, he gathered 987 runs in
nine Tests, regaining his No. 1 spot in the ICC rankings, before yielding to the comet that was Michael Clarke.