 The South African Cricket Board seems to be on its way to start afresh. Just a
day after the South African cricket coach, Mickey Arthur tendered his resignation
from his position, the entire selection panel of the South African cricket team
has been axed by the Cricket South Africa. They will now replace the panel with
a new, interim panel.
The chief selector, Mike Procter, expressed his shock over the decision
to lay him out. He said that he was not expecting the dismissal, as the cricket
board had said after the series against England got over that there will be
a performance review meeting in which the steps will be taken to ensure that
they learn from the mistakes.
Procter also added that nobody had alluded to any major overhauls and that
the board hadn't said that they would be looking at scapegoats. Procter also
added that the selection panel, which also included Craig Matthews, Winky
Ximiya and Mustapha Khan, had prepared some presentations to decide on the future
course of action to be presented to the board.
Recently, the South African side had not been performing too well on the field.
In the months following their elevation to the number one position in the Tests
by beating Australia in Australia, they have seen more downs than up. They lost
to Australia at home, and then went on to crash out of the ICC World T20 in
the semi-finals, Champions Trophy in the first round and then lost the ODI series
to England before managing to tie the Tests.
Procter was also involved in a goof-up when Imran Tahir was selected in the
side despite not possessing the required visa to play for South Africa.
According to Cricinfo, he said, "I think we had too short a time in the
business, as selectors we always gave our own thoughts, we never ended up voting
on issues, we talked around issues, we enjoyed each others company and I think
we were doing pretty well. The time we had was too short but we did introduce
some new players."
Earlier yesterday, Arthur had tendered his resignation. He said that the reason
behind his resignation was the fact that his vision did not match with the cricket
board's vision any more. He also added that he would like to take a break before
contemplating what he needed to do in the future. The South African head Gerald Majola announced that the board will undergo a restructuring plan.
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