Port Elizabeth. Jan. 21: South Africa never lost a single Test when he was captain, but in Dr Ali Bacher’s story, that record occupies nothing more than a footnote. His real contribution to the game came long after his playing days were long over.
As head of the South African cricket board for nearly two decades, he steered the country through controversy to consolidation. He organised rebel tours in the early eighties for the Proteas in violation of an international ban on sports in the country due to the apartheid regime, but supported the transformation initiative in the ’90s — of reserving at least seven players of colour in touring squads.
Amongst all this though, South Africa lost a promising cricketer to England and a talented opener to vile habits and their finest captain to match-fixing. On Friday, Bacher spoke to this newspaper about why Kevin Pietersen left his native land, how Hansie Cronje admitted to him of not being ‘completely honest’ and what would have happened if Herschelle Gibbs had been a “tad more disciplined”.
Excerpts from an interview:
Herschelle Gibbs has made a series of allegations against past and present cricketers. How do you see the development?
If he had the determination and focus of Steve Waugh and been a tad more disciplined, he could’ve been the greatest batsmen of all time. I used to admonish him a lot and give up a kick up his backside when I was at the helm of the cricket board, but that just didn’t work on him. There’s no question he spoiled his talent.
Kevin Pietersen blamed you and the quota system for not being able to play for South Africa…
As a kid he was an off-spinner, but provinces couldn’t have all-white teams, so he was dropped from the domestic side Natal in favour of Goolam Bodi — a player of colour. Kevin met me after this happened and said he’d go to England if he didn’t get his place back. I told him that South Africa was in need of a spinner. I offered him a permanent position in another domestic side, the Free State team, but he didn’t budge. We couldn’t change the rules just for him. He rubbished the same country that gave him his cricket skills — that’s why people here don’t respect him.
The game is suffering from a yet another scandal with three Pakistan players accused of spot-fixing. How do you get rid of corruption in the game?
The fixing has been happening since the ’90s, but the common response has always been: ‘Where’s the evidence?’ The ICC cannot solve the problem from Dubai — there is no way they can know which player is being approached when. To solve this problem, there has to be a code of ethics in every player’s contract and it should be signed in front of the media.
When the late Hansie Cronje was accused of match-fixing, you were the first person to back him. Later, you admitted he was guilty…
I remember it was a Friday morning and I was at the office when the South African cricket board’s communications officer told me there had been a lot of calls from Delhi about Hansie being involved in a match-fixing scandal. I phoned Hansie and he denied it emphatically. That was that — I believed him completely, because I was like a father figure to him.
But a lot of people came up to me later and said that something wasn’t right. At 3 in morning on Tuesday, he called me and said, ‘Doc, I haven’t been honest with you.’
Did you speak to him after that?
I had to keep my distance from Hansie and I couldn’t go see him. But he phoned me once days later. I picked up the phone and said: ‘Hansie, how’s it going?’ and he replied, ‘So bad. They’ve now stopped me from playing beach cricket.’
I’ll never forget that tone in his voice — he sounded terrible. I put the phone down after that — it just broke my heart.