Africa-Press – South-Africa. There’s seemingly no guarantee that Dean Elgar and Temba Bavuma, the Proteas’ current red- and white-ball captains, will still occupy their leadership positions in the future.
Shukri Conrad and Rob Walter’s appointments in the respective formats, officially confirmed on Monday, have placed a firm spotlight on the two men’s willingness to mould teams with the future in mind, raising doubts over how they view captaincy.
Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) overall Proteas performance strategy for the coming years – spearheaded by director of cricket Enoch Nkwe – is predicated on success in the 2027 50-over World Cup at home and the 2025 to 2027 World Test Championship cycle.
To that end, Nkwe has specifically earmarked the next two years for South Africa to broaden its Test team’s pool of depth – rendering Dean Elgar’s age (35) a factor – while Bavuma (32) might be a shoo-in in the short term as the Proteas aim to qualify for this year’s 50-over showpiece in India, but could make way afterwards.
“The reality is that these two captains are not going to captain for the next five years. We need to identify who is going to be the next two captains and how much time we give them to blood them,” said Nkwe in terms of potential succession planning.
“Those are some of the hard conversations we are going to be having over the next month so that everything is clear. We are not saying we are firing anyone, but over the next month or three months, we need to build stability, so by that time the season finished, it’s very clear.”
Nkwe admitted that neither Elgar nor Bavuma were canvassed for input on the recruitment process but will be having engagements with Conrad and Walter in due course.
Importantly, if the players provide compelling evidence of their desire to still contribute meaningfully to the national cause, they’ll be given opportunities to do so.
“I need to understand the coaches’ ideas around the leadership. We need to give them an opportunity to sit down with the two captains and discuss how they see it going forward. It’s going to be important that the decisions we make now, we commit to 100% to for the next two years,” said Nkwe.
“If the captains feel strongly that they can contribute for the next two years and help with the transition and rebuilding phase, we commit to that. We are going to be having some very interesting conversations over the next couple of months to ensure we are all together and we build that stability. We don’t want a situation of chopping and changing.”
The need for stability extends to the broader playing group, where CSA are actively investigating introducing format-specific contracts, which will probably become unavoidable anyway if next month’s personal-development plan meetings reveal such sentiments from the players.
Already some centrally-contracted players only ply their trade in certain formats, like Elgar, who only plays Tests, and Quinton de Kock, who only plays in the limited overs formats.
“We are working with the South African Cricketers’ Association,” said Nkwe.
“We don’t want to be caught with our pants down. We are very open to if a player just wants to commit to two formats, then how do we contract them?”
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