Time to Play that Forgotten Series

By Trevor Chesterfield

Ten months ago, well . . . a little less now as we are nearing the end of June, there was mayhem and a lot of finger pointing going on in Colombo.
South Africa, led by Mark Boucher, were caught in the middle of what turned out to be an assassination attempt on the Pakistan High Commissioner, and decided enough was enough. Home, with its hijackings and daylight robberies, came the suggestion was felt to be a lot safer.
This was, of course, despite police suggesting armoured protection, wearing bullet vests, and other extreme safety precautions. Forgotten was that despite the deluge at the end of the monsoon season, a triangular series was about to be played.
No matter all the good intentions, dressing up players in garb designed to stop your every day chandiya (thugs) from causing disorder is going to be the first indication that while they are here to play Sri Lanka and India, cricket has become an incidental part of the visit.
Now, if you read the itinerary South Africa have agreed to on their tour of Pakistan in a couple of months to play in Karachi, where they riot over exorbitantly long power cuts and storm banks and wreck restaurants in the process. Pakistan is a nation where extremism leads to journalists being beheaded.
In fact, a quick check of failed states has Pakistan in the top 10 bracket and Karachi is not a city where tourists of any sort willingly tread. But typecasting cities and stereotyping its citizens as betel chewing terrorists is a generalising insult to the country, Karachi as a city, and its teeming population.
Even in Colombo, you won't find Chandiyas lurking at every street corner and trishaw jockeys are fair-minded types. They may try and wheedle the extra few rupees out of what tourists there are, but that is part of the fun in hiring a trishaw. Living in this part of the world, by choice, is what you make of it.
Even in New Zealand, an email from a relative suggests that in the city of my Alma Mater, Wanganui, they now have drive-by shootings. Yeah. Sure it gets scary.
The point here is that South Africa owe Sri Lanka a postponed limited overs series. If the Safs (the name Proteas, a spiky flower without any genuine scent, is one that has never sat comfortably in my thoughts), can go to Karachi in Pakistan, what is wrong with Colombo?
Oh, okay . . . If they insist on playing it in Dambulla, fine. Let's go to Dambulla and visit the Rock Temple on a day off. Even climb the world cultural heritage site of Sigiriya, if my legs can take it.
As part of the agreed future tours programme, and not something that has been sneaked as an extra (as the West Indies Cricket Board had the cheek to do), the Unitech Series is still an event that has to be played as part of the general programme.
No doubt, while they are at Lord's, in London, before sitting down to the annual dinner with its foie gras patê starter and chilled Chablis, with discredited types as Zimbabwe's Peter Chingoka and his chief executive side kick, Bvute, Sri Lanka Cricket's chairman and CEO, Jayantha Dharmadasa and Duleep Mendis might remind the South African delegation of their obligations.
Just a tap on the shoulder would do. They have, it is understood from sources in the Caribbean, already met and discussed the issue of the shelved series. Emirate sources also suggest that if the South Africans are still concerned about playing in Sri Lanka, there are alternative venues available.
Remember if you will that Australia went this route some years ago and borrowed P Saravanamuttu Oval for the first Test all because of the riots in Pakistan. At least Colombo is far safer than Karachi. They may hold demonstrations, and protest about certain aspects of life, but you don't get riots, even over power cuts.
There is nothing wrong with South Africa playing the series here this time of year; or any time of year as long as it doesn't coincide with the worst days of the monsoon. Security is pretty good. So, what's the beef? If it’s scheduling, the games can be played before the Pakistan tour as Sri Lanka, until the marshmallow twenty/20 event in South Africa in September, have a free period. So, what's wrong with an extra slog series being added to the programme?
The only complaint here is that hopefully visiting journalists won't be used to try and get in on the act and urged by others, tell me what I should and should not write, as happened last time.
Cricket South Africa have come out in support of the International Cricket Council's decision to ban officials who were involved in the World Cup final debacle, Rudi Koertzen among them.
The CSA chief executive, Majola, talking from London, said the decision to suspend the five officials from the World Twenty20 Championships in South Africa was to 'be applauded'. This was despite the suspension 'of South African cricket's favourite son, Rudi Koertzen, we feel that match officials need to be punished, like captains and players, for transgressions. We at CSA took a decision at our last meeting to request the ICC to adopt this approach after several major blunders by match officials. Captains are fined and face suspensions for relatively minor infringements of the regulations such as slow over rates, yet officials get away with errors that change the outcome of matches. We believe they, too, need to be held accountable for their actions.'
Ironically, Koertzen and match referee Jeff Crowe, in Sri Lanka for the Tests against Bangladesh, are two of the officials who have been banned for that tournament. Not that they'll miss it. Like rugby and football, Twenty/20 is about as palatable as sucking on an after dinner mint: tacky and forgettable.
While Crowe shouldered the blame for the World Cup final fiasco, the former New Zealand captain wasn't the only one at fault. No doubt when he's next back in South Africa, he will enjoy a bottle of one of the world's great wines, Warwick 'three ladies' from the small estate in the Mulder's Vlei (river) Valley. It has been ranked along with that of some of the best Medoc wines of which Chateau Margeaux comes at a much higher price.