Contracts time

May 3, 2003 by neil manthorp

For those with a smart sense of tim­ing you may have realised that the time for SA’s play­er con­tracts to be reviewed has been and gone. So who’s out of a job and who’s not?

Actu­al­ly, the con­tracts dead­line of April 30 has been extend­ed by a month, osten­si­bly because the team is tour­ing Bangladesh but real­is­ti­cal­ly because there are some hideous­ly dif­fi­cult deci­sions to make and the Gen­er­al Coun­cil, the selec­tors and the Trea­sury all need­ed the extra time.

So, at the next meet­ing of the Nation­al Crick­et Com­mit­tee (which, you may remem­ber was formed to help solve the last cri­sis in SA crick­et fol­low­ing the ham­mer­ing by Aus­tralia) the con­tracts of the coun­try’s elite will be dis­cussed. The lifestyles and even liveli­hoods of the games’ best play­ers will be decided.

Six play­ers will be enter­ing the sec­ond year of two-year con­tracts so they may con­tin­ue to breathe eas­i­ly for anoth­er 12 months — or 11, actu­al­ly, because the plan is to revert to April 30 con­tract renewals next year. Those lucky play­ers are: Shaun Pol­lock, Jacques Kallis, Her­schelle Gibbs, Makhya Nti­ni, Mark Bouch­er and Paul Adams.

There will also be (or should be) five def­i­nite depar­tures from the list: Allan Don­ald, Jon­ty Rhodes, Mor­nan­tau Hay­ward, Roger Telemachus and, sad­ly, Steve Elworthy.

The task fac­ing the NCC is to lim­it the num­ber of nation­al­ly con­tract­ed play­ers to a max­i­mum of 20. So let’s help them along and add the ‘cer­tain­ties’ to the top six. Graeme Smith, Neil McKen­zie, Boeta Dip­pe­naar and Jacques Rudolph. We should prob­a­bly add the two left arm spin­ners, Nicky Boje and Robin Peterson.

Mar­tin van Jaarsveld, cur­rent­ly with­out con­tract, scored three con­sec­u­tive cen­turies for SA ‘A’ against Aus­tralia ‘A’ — if he isn’t a prospect worth invest­ing in then nobody is. Con­tract. That’s 13.

What about Mfu­neko Ngam who spent the whole of last year draw­ing a con­tract­ed salary from the UCB while he was injured — is he worth per­sist­ing with? It seems point­less to adopt a pol­i­cy of long-term invest­ment if you’re going to aban­don it after one bad year. Con­tract. 14.

Ash­well Prince? Con­tract. 15. Andrew Hall? Con­tract. 16. The same could be said of the pol­i­cy regard­ing Justin Ontong althouth it can be eas­i­ly argued that the tal­ent­ed Bolan­der has had enough oppor­tu­ni­ties to impress and has failed to take them. No contract.

Charl Langeveldt? A change of province from Boland to Bor­der shows ini­tia­tive and ambi­tion and that has been allied to a phys­i­cal deter­mi­na­tion. He has lost weight and is bowl­ing with more pace and swing than ever. Con­tract. 17.

Now the hard ques­tions start. If Lance Klusen­er was­n’t worth a place in either the Test squad to Bangladesh or the ‘A’ squad to Aus­tralia, can he real­ly be worth a con­tract? If Eric Simons is going to suc­ceed in shap­ing the future of the game in his image, he can­not afford to enter­tain a man who sends the mes­sage to juniors that self-serv­ing train­ing and prac­tise sched­ules are fine and that crick­et is a job, first and fore­most, in which pas­sion and pride are irritations.

Is Gary Kirsten worth con­tract­ing for anoth­er year now that he’s a Test play­er only? Now that Smith and Gibbs are the estab­lished open­ers, is there room for Gaz­za? A five Test tour of Eng­land, plus the chance that Gibbs may be moved to the mid­dle order, plus the fact that Kirsten could come ‘cheap’ because he won’t play one-day­ers, means he’ll be offered anoth­er year. 18.

And that is where the NCC should leave it. If any play­er out­side that group plays six ODIs or two Tests he auto­mat­i­cal­ly becomes eli­gi­ble for a con­tract pro­vid­ed the nation­al selec­tors approve the move. That means Quin­ton Friend, Charl Willough­by, Alan Daw­son, Tha­mi Tsolek­ile, Justin Kemp, Albiw Morkel, Dewald Pre­to­rius and Ger­ald Dros can all make an impres­sion and be wel­comed into the fold full-time.

Cur­rent Contracts:
A+
Shaun Pollock
Mark Boucher
Jacques Kallis
Her­schelle Gibbs
Gary Kirsten
Lance Klusener
A
Paul Adams
Nicky Boje
Allan Donald
Makhaya Ntini
Jon­ty Rhodes
B
Boeta Dippenaar
Mor­nan­tau Hayward
Neil McKenzie
Mfu­neko Ngam
C
Steve Elworthy
Justin Ontong
Ash­well Prince
Jacques Rudolph
Graeme Smith
Roger Telemachus

New Con­tracts:
A+
Graeme Smith
Shaun Pollock
Jacques Kallis
Her­schelle Gibbs
Makhaya Ntini
A
Paul Adams
Nicky Boje
Neil McKenzie
Mark Boucher
B
Gary Kirsten
Boeta Dippenaar
Andrew Hall
Jacques Rudolph
Mar­tin van Jaarsveld
Robin Peterson
C
Mfu­neko Ngam
Ash­well Prince
Charl Langeveldt