‘WE'VE GOT USED TO BAD NEWS'

Despite Racism Saga Involving Coach Boucher And CSA Director Smith, And Injuries, SA Skipper Dean Elgar Puts On Brave Face Ahead Of India Series

- Gaurav Gupta

Mumbai: These are certainly the toughest times that South African cricket has seen since the national team’s readmission into international cricket in 1991.

The discovery of a new covid variant, Omicron, which is believed to have originated in South Africa, has left their cricket crippled, forcing Cricket South Africa to cancel the T20 Mzansi Super League for the second year running, even as CSA somehow managed to convince the BCCI to not pull Team India out of the all-important India tour, even if the series would have to be played in empty stadiums.

If that wasn’t enough, the ghosts of the apartheid era are threatening to return to haunt the ‘Rainbow Nation,’ with two of their former cricketing stars, now important cogs in the national team’s wheel, in the dock. On Monday, Director of cricket Graeme Smith, who denies the claims, and national team coach Mark Boucher were among a number of CSA employees implicated in “tentative findings” made by the Social Justice and Nation Building Ombudsman into alleged racial discrimination in the past. Reacting to the report, CSA said that it would investigate the conduct of everyone implicated in the report, though only after the series with India has concluded.