The mediocre white-ball bowling all-rounder’s announcement of his international retirement says a lot about the state of South African cricket.
Pretorius said he will be 34 years old in March. He played his 3 tests, 27 his ODIs, 30 T20Is. His test his bowling average was 36.00 and his ODI and his T20I economic ratings were 4.96 and 8.28 for him. He recorded 83 carries in six Test innings, making half a century in each whiteball format.He finished his tally in South Africa T20I record against Pakistan in Lahore in February 2021. There was a moment when I achieved 5/17. This included the turnstiles of Mohammad Rizwan, Babal Azam and Iftikhar Ahmed. Who knows what the situation would have been had he not broken his thumb in T20I against India in Indore in October when he broke his thumb on 3/26.
His ability to kiss the field as consistently and thoughtfully as he hits the ball, and his athletic prowess on the field, make him a passionate competitor and a true franchise-level game winner. By all accounts, few players are as popular and respected by their peers in the dressing room as Pretorius.
But he’s not a world champion at the highest level. Still, the news that he hung up his South African shirt caused an interesting reaction on his social media. It was a ‘sad day’, a ‘huge loss’ and ‘the last thing I thought I would read this morning’ – I would have understood better if Pretorius was Jack Callis, Sean Pollock or Lance Kruzener. A comment that would be
The latter’s decision to remove himself from his CSA shortlist to become the men’s team’s next white ball coach, also announced Monday, was either a mistake by the CSA or involved in such a dysfunctional organization. It was hailed as one of the smartest moves by Klusener himself, which was not. The fact that they applied for the position in the first place, or both ends of the same issue.
Krusener is his hero in the cult of all-rounders, whose explosive strikes robbed South Africa of the dumbest run-out medal of all to propel South Africa to his 1999 World Cup final. rice field. As a coach, he’s a work in progress. He has dabbled in a number of franchise jobs and has proven his potential by leading Afghanistan to his 2021 T20 World Cup. At 51, he has many years in team tracksuits ahead of him. Maybe even, sooner or later, a South Africa team tracksuit.
But the way Klusener’s candidature for the South Africa position was heralded – his SA20 franchise, Durban’s Super Giants, tweeted a mocked up photograph of an airport arrivals board captioned “Lance Klusener, head coach, South Africa” – you might have thought he was Bob Woolmer, the master of innovation and forward thinking who looked on in horror from South Africa’s dressing room as the drama unfolded that day at Edgbaston in 1999.
In different ways, the Pretorius and Klusener developments illustrate realities of cricket in South Africa. Even as a CSA contracted player, with an ODI World Cup looming in India in October, and with few clear rivals of his calibre for a bowling allrounder’s spot, Pretorius has made up his mind that serving as a fulltime white-ball mercenary is a better career option for him than continuing to focus on playing for South Africa. Klusener made a similar call.
A life as a franchise coach would be better than hoisting the flag.
Conspiracy theories that Pretorius and Klusener were both white and did what they did have already been spotlighted.
Damn the CSA idiots and their race obsessions. Apart from the fact that Pretorius has played more than one-third of his games in every whiteball game in South Africa since his debut, his closest rival for the spot, the newly arrived Marco Janssen is also white. And this Klusener remained in his six shortlists, including four white coaches.
Closer to the truth, South African football has grown by leaps and bounds since Krusener won his last international cap in September 2004, and since Pretorius made his debut in November 2016. The stability, the future is shrinking. The same is true of South African society at large, the result of centuries of inequality and decades of clashes of corruption. Cricket and cricketers are part of this society and undeniably subject to its hustle and bustle. What is certain, however, is that the T20 League will offer players and coaches a new world of positive opportunities. A safer zone where you don’t have to deal with weak currencies, radical nationalism and the artificially created pressures of international matches.
South Africans who lament the abandonment of national honor by their own people in pursuit of pure professionalism should reverse this equation. Ask how many are left and consider the obviously better alternatives available. Tristan Stubbs and Dewald Brewis don’t need South African cricket, but they do need to make a living. Thank you for your willingness to include the national team in your portfolio for now. Don’t be surprised if that changes.
Are fans part of the player’s problem alongside a growing cancer of unjust inequality, an irreparably broken society, dysfunctional infrastructure, a declining economy, and a hopeless acceptance of them all? It should be asked, too, that the people of South Africa, as those in similar dire straits are doing in other countries, are taking to the streets by the millions to add to their list of afflictions. They are not protesting or forcing change. Instead, they are maliciously posting about the few who have built physical, mental and emotional walls and found their way to a better life. By doing so, you vent your anger. Part of this is justified. Because without exception, getting out of the turmoil that South Africans deal with on a daily basis is unfairly privileged, and cricketers are among them. But part of it comes from refusing to understand that the world has changed, that international cricket is no longer the pinnacle of the game, and that there is no going back to the old antics. .
Just as you would have a hard time finding his two characters worthy of praise in the game, you would have a harder time finding a South African than Pretorius and Klusener. Sharing a dressing room at SA20 is proof that you are happy to be part of South African cricket. Not a South African color. It’s about professionalism, not pride or patriotism. The time has come for reality to be acknowledged.