South Africa Test team betrayed by own board

South Africa were at full strength against India, unlike the team they will bring to New Zealand. Photo: Halden Krogh/AP

Ever since the Indian Premier League launched in 2008, Test cricket could have imagined a bleak future: a game effectively limited to the unfortunate T20 cricketers. When South Africa arrives in New Zealand for a Test series next month, there will be a glimpse of that future.

Before South Africa's selectors chose the squad, they had to drop 77 players. These men, the most sought-after T20 players in the country, will instead play in the SA20, the country's T20 league. So while South Africa attempts to defend their remarkable unbeaten record against New Zealand in the Test series, Kagiso Rabada and Aiden Markram will be 7,000 miles away, playing for MI Cape Town and Sunrisers Eastern Cape.

Kagiso Rabada will play in the South African T20 league while a heavily weakened Test team takes on New Zealand. Photo: Getty Images/Sajjad Hussain

It is a myth that Test cricket's primacy has never been challenged before. Since the great Leary Constantine missed West Indies matches because Nelson, his Lancashire League club, did not release him in 1933, the history of Test cricket has often been an awkward coexistence with the domestic leagues. In 1977–79, the entire sport splintered, with scores of leading players signing up for the World Series of Cricket, Kerry Packer's breakaway league, leaving behind the possibility of playing official tests.

So the dynamics facing South Africa are not as new as they seem. But what is new is that these absences are a result of the board wiping out its own Test team, with Cricket South Africa demanding that the players feature in the SA20. It's like the Football Association scheduling England's international matches to coincide with the Premier League and then declaring that anyone with a Premier League contract is ineligible to stand in the elections.

< p>As a result, South African Test cricket continues its alarming cost cuts. Since readmission in 1992, South Africa's win-loss record is second only to Australia. From 2006 to 2015, the team did not lose a single away series for nine years, rising to first position in the world; Graham Smith toppled England captains with the same ruthlessness that the 1922 Committee reserved for Conservative prime ministers. However, as SA20 commissioner, Smith now runs a competition that has seen South Africa field a depleted Test team.

Cricket South Africa lost £13m in 2021-23

The weakness of the rand and lack of sponsorship are hampering what South Africa can gain from hosting international cricket. Indeed, much of international cricket only further empowers South African cricket, with the board losing money against all but the big three opponents. Cricket South Africa lost £13 million between 2021 and 2023.

Financial disputes like this are increasingly making Test cricket a luxury that South Africa cannot afford. The Proteas will only play a two-match Test series between 2023 and 2026.

A similar disdain for the red-ball game can be seen at the national level. Since 2019, the number of first-class matches for each team in the South African top flight has been reduced from 10 to seven. «They have to play first-class cricket,» says Russell Domingo, the former South Africa coach who now coaches the Lions in domestic games. “It all comes down to finances. When you cut those costs, the standards will come down.”

But for all the irritation about a depleted South Africa team in New Zealand — an event the board says will be a one-off — there is also a grim acceptance of the new reality. «The SA20 must happen because it is the lifeblood of South African cricket,» said Shukri Conrad, South Africa's Test coach. «If that doesn't happen, we won't have Test cricket anyway.» Such words reflect a new truth about South African cricket; everything else now corresponds to SA20, the only integral part of the country's calendar.

However, while some of South Africa's problems are very local, they are a microcosm of the global crisis facing the Test. Not since 2019 have two countries outside the Big Three played a three-match Test series against each other.

The plight of Test cricket requires global solutions. Borrowing an approach from football, international windows will prevent cricketers from choosing between Tests and T20 leagues.

Perhaps the biggest need is to better reward test players. In franchise cricket, Rabada and company pay what the market thinks they are worth: in his case, £925,000 for an IPL season. However, Rabada, who has 291 Test wickets at 22.05 apiece, making him one of the best fast bowlers of all time, is believed to earn a total of around £250,000 a year (six million rand) from cricket in South Africa. Players of his caliber for Australia, England or India earn five times more on their national boards. As long as this disparity persists, the sport's middle-class players will continue to react to market forces, devastating the Test game.

England and Australia earn millions more than South Africa

In recent days, Mike Baird, chairman of Cricket Australia, has at least acknowledged this truth, advocating for «increased test match payouts to make them more competitive». Delivering on such words would entail reinstating the Test Cricket Fund to subsidize matches outside the big three and guaranteeing a minimum wage for Test players.

However, recent actions do not bode well. Last year, the ICC's new revenue sharing formula gave 38 percent of revenue to India; England and Australia could also receive millions more than countries like South Africa.

The sad thing is that South Africa remains a bountiful source of talent; many of South Africa's best young cricketers are still hungry to play Test cricket. Dewald Brevis, known as «Baby AB» for his resemblance to De Villiers, was signed by the 18-year-old Mumbai Indians two years ago; It seemed to signal a new era of South African stars who didn't need a five-day game. He has scored two first-class scores in the last month, indicating his desire to become a Test cricketer too.

But for players of Brevis's generation, the knowledge and mystique of Test cricket will not be enough if they are asked to give up higher incomes elsewhere to play.

Led by an alarming pace attack, South Africa are still retaining players to become a formidable Test team. However, in an era of fragmentation and change in cricket, talent alone is not enough to achieve success in red-ball cricket. Whether there is a desire — at home and especially around the world — to help South African Test cricket has never been less clear.