Rewind back to the 1970s and 1980s, to greats like Garfield Sobers, Clive Lloyd, Vivian Richards, Desmond Haynes, Gordon Greenidge, Courtney Walsh, Curtly Ambrose, Malcolm Marshall and Joel Garner.
This is a team that can be compared to the great Aussie team of 2003-07. In other words, it’s a team that won almost everywhere against almost anyone, such was the dominance of the West Indies cricket team.
But then something peculiar happened after the 1996 World Cup. Suddenly the mighty West Indies were no longer feared.
Was it be the resurgence of Steve Waugh’s Australia or a drastic fall in the money pumped into the West Indies Cricket Board? The reason has never been definitively determined.
That’s not to take credit away from the quality players the West Indies produced after that, notably the likes of Brian Lara, Shivnarine Chanderpaul, Chris Gayle, Darren Sammy and Jason Holder. However, for some reason they simply just did not win on tours, especially in Tests, even at home.
Granted, they performed well in 2004 Champions Trophy, winning the thing, and in 2006 they lost to Australia in the final. They also won the ICC World T20 in 2012 and 2016 under Darren Sammy.
But strangely enough these flashes of success seem to be more anachronisms. That fear of the West Indies is now long gone to such an extent that they had to qualify for the 2019 World Cup and are no guarantee for the 2023 one either.
Now let’s rewind again, this time back to 2006. The South African cricket team was the only one that could go head to head with the mighty Aussies. This team had consisted of something like this Graeme Smith, Hashim Amla, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, AB de Villiers, Jean-Paul Duminy, Mark Boucher, Shaun Pollock, Andre Nel, Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini.
This team also almost won everywhere they played and dominated Test cricket alongside Ricky Ponting’s Australia, and of course the 434-match marker is now seen as a checkpoint for modern-day cricket.
One particular tour of India in South Africa in 2006 comes to mind, where Steve Smith and co obliterated Rahul Dravid’s India, save for the T20 game.
But today the fear of South Africa is greatly diminished. They finished seventh in the 2019 World Cup after having made semi-finals in 2015. This could be partially attributed to internal problems at Cricket South Africa with administration and funding, but it may also be down to a lack of worthy successors to Smith and co.
De Villier’s early retirement left Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock as the only feared Proteas. Granted, Kagiso Rabada is one of the best bowlers in the world, but sadly he seems to be more the exception to the rule. Morne Morkel and Chris Morris have found other deals.
Issues with funding are a grave threat to the viability of South Africa’s strong cricketing legacy. After all, we’ve seen it happen before.
Junior
Roar Rookie
Was with you until you mentioned quotas. I beg you to show me which black player was chosen because of his colour. I also ask this of you why is it that white players can play on potential, yet black players have to prove themselves everyday
Nathan Hall
Roar Pro
Hi Paul, While I agree that ICC does give generous grants, if one digs deeper they are usually for essentials like- match fees for players, pitch maintenance and travel for the entire teams (currently an emphasis is also righlty going to the women's teams). However, a vast source sadly in SA goes to embezzlement which takens talent search a hit .This goes in well with what you say with a poor administration and somewhat archaic structure. One argument would be a rather politically incorrect one, which I did not mention but lets just say having mandatory coloured players may put too much emphasis on diversity rather than finding real talent (that being said, there are brilliant black players in likes of Rabada. Ngidi who benefited from the scheme...) . The major revenue stream for cricketing bodies these days apart from ICC funding are their domestic competition (where revenue is generated by sponsors and adverts). CA has BBL, BCCI has the IPL, PCB has the PSL and even ECB are now focusing on the Hundred for this revenue stream. Granted , a lot of people have said there is MSL but it lacks the same punch as IPL or BBL while the true profits from them have been questionable. I have never questioned a lack of talent here (or in the West Indies for that matter), but when you have cricketers like Ab de villiers quitting international cricket for IPL or BBL you get to see a problem. The problem here is a lack of trust between CSA and players, the former has too much political control whereas the latter find lucrative deals elsewhere. One could say this is a problem also between WICB and their players like Narine or Gayle himself of late though I think this is being addressed now. I hope people realise I am not rooting for South Africa to decline as a cricketing nation, but on the contrary pointing out some red flags that people like CPM refuse to see. The more people see these red flags, the better we can save the great South African brand of cricket.
CPM
Roar Rookie
Great fast bowlers like Duane Olivier, Kyle Abbot, Merchant de Lange and Hardus Viljoen have all played test cricket and will walk into any test team and cause mayhem. But they are ineligible because CSA does not select Kolpak players. Now with Brexit things have changed and it will be near impossible for SA players qualify as locals players in England. And with MSL contracts on offer player will choose to stay in SA for the big pay checks anyway.
CPM
Roar Rookie
A bit premature really to make bold predictions especially if you take into consideration that cricket is actually a growing sport in SA with strong grass root participation and strong domestic competitions. When the MSL is launched proper then it will become one of the top 4 T20 leagues in the world filling up the coffers of CSA for years to come. It will be difficult to replace the 2002 - 2014 Graeme Smith team but the next generation will come through.
Paul
Roar Guru
hi Nathan, I don't pretend to know what funding arrangements South African cricket has internally, but do know they receive exactly the same amount from the ICC every year. In fact, they receive the same amount as Australia does and the West Indies for that matter (see link below). The big issue I think with SA cricket is a badly managed Board and a lack of seriously great cricketers. If the first problem's fixed which I gather is in hand, the second will sort itself out. Any country that can produce so many quality cricketers in the past century, won't stop doing so now. I enjoyed your piece and hope to hear more from you. https://emergingcricket.com/insight/icc-global-funding-model-explainer/
Tony Hodges
Roar Rookie
I’d say rough patch rather than slide. They’ve still got some champions, and every side has moments where the talent conveyor belt gets empty or promising players fail to develop. Still, they’re more than a marginal chance of falling into a spiral, which is as much about finances as anything else.
Once Upon a Time on the Roar
Roar Guru
There was never any money pumped into west Indian cricket not even during their glory days, as Clive Lloyd put it "Sadly this was a time of patching up old grandstands rather than building new ones". If you go to you tube and type in 'Richie Richardson 182' you will see that in 1991, near the end of their invincible era, this Bourda ground in Georgetown would not look out of place in an inland country town in Queensland.
Yawn
Guest
Beat me to it.
Tony Tea
Roar Rookie
Naaa, they're the next Zimbabwe.
Gary David
Roar Rookie
I certainly hope South Africa are not the next West Indies! It's a bit early to call, hopefully it's just a down patch as all teams have from time to time (Australia's early 2010s was pretty ugly too). World cricket needs more powerful teams, Sri Lanka also on the slide, Pakistan hit and miss, thank goodness New Zealand are at least up there.
Gee
Roar Rookie
The end of Kolpac should help with their bowling stocks.