Bacher must face reality
With just 15 days to go before he relinquishes his position as managing director of the UCB, Ali Bacher still seems to be struggling with the realities of his imminent change of job. Operating World Cup 2003 is no problem — he’s coping with that brilliantly and will no doubt do a fantastic job.
It’s just that he seems to be finding it extremely difficult to face the fact that he will no longer be in charge of the national board. Infact, he won’t even hold an official position at the UCB.
Yet, on Thursday, he was quoted in the Cape Times newspaper talking on the subject of Mfuneko Ngam: “There is no doubt that we will offer him a new contract from next year on the recommendation of the selectors.” Really?
Contracts are renewed at the end of March every year by which time Gerald Majola will have been UCB MD for three months. So is Majola planning to co-opt Bacher onto to the contracts committee?
“He shouldn’t really have said that, actually,” Majola said on Friday. “But he’s been the man in charge for so long that we should be patient with these things, for a while. Mfuneko is a wonderful talent but his contract will be my decision,” a clearly unworried Majola said.
Bacher’s new office, incidentally, will not even be at the Wanderers when he starts his World Cup job in earnest after January 1st. “I think it’s good for all of us to have our own space,” Majola said.
Perhaps the fact that Bacher appears to be heading for a lengthy spell in Cape Town at the end of January aswering stiff questions from Judge Edwin King on good governance of cricket may help him come to terms with his new life.