Victims Of Imagination

At last the die-hard supporters of the Proteas have something to celebrate.

Sheer determination, good old fashioned hard work and guts accomplished the win. Herschelle Gibbs played an innings that will mature hisbatting even more and take him to another level. To curb his natural instinct for so long showed tremendous character and it was this inningsthat laid the platform for the rare success.

To learn for the future, one should never hesitate to reflect on the past and looking back to the start of the series against Australia away fromhome, the expectations on the Proteas were enormous.

In the minds of many, the South Africans were going to do battle on an even footing and evenbeat Australia. The world champion crown was up for grabs and we wanted it!

We all woke up with a huge bump and found our coffee ice cold. The Aussies had done their homework and we had become victims of our own imagination.

They walloped us so badly that it was embarrassing and it even reached the depths of our society. However, we still believed that on our own soil,the lads could do the business. Wrong again, we got soundly thrashed in the first two Tests.

Fortunately, sport does sometimes go wrong for even the best teams, they slipped and we nipped in for a win in Durban.

What I’m saying is that for far too long we have been lulled into thinking and believing that South African cricket is going along just fine and thatas long as we are beating the also rans like India, Zimbabwe, Kenya, New Zealand and the West Indies, we are doing just fine.

Slowly but surely we have became accustomed to mediocrity and unfortunately it never fails tobreed contempt. The domestic system was going along just fine and as long as we hadacademies producing players, coaching-staff that were committed, sponsors that got mileage andpresident suites that were full, we really never dreamt that the whole system could become so exposed that ithighlighted every little aspect that was out of kilter.

The two men I really feel sorry for are Gerald Majola, CEO of the UCB, and the Minister of Sport, Mr Balfour. I say that because they both inheriteda system that was fundamentally floored. Mr Majola took over from Dr Bacher when turmoilreined supreme.

The Cronje saga, the West Indies issue, the India "Test" controversy, transformation needing urgent attention, thedevelopment programme starting to feed players into the system and on the playing side, a new captain, an inexperiencedconvener of selection, a World Cup looming and a bunch of fans like you and me just wanting to see SouthAfrica be the best in the world.

The Minister on the other hand, has really no say in the day-to-day running of any sporting code but was there at thetable with the Cronje case, he was roped in to sort out the India mess and was called in to pass judgment on the selection debacle in Australia.

Transformation and development are areas that he has to ensure are put in place and are adhered to. After all, he represents the majority of peoplethat live in our country and is mandated to fulfil those expectations.

Deep down however, I know that both have a burning passion for cricket and that they would love nothing more to see a South African team united inall aspects with a support base that reflects all the people of South Africa.

They will have felt any loss to Australia as deeply as it is felt by anyone who loves the game.

The limited overs series is about to start and lets not be lulled into believing that because Jonty, Polly and Zulu are back all is about to gojust fine. We lost three out of four matches to the Aussies in the recent series and they have raised the bar for their team by dropping the Waugh’s.

They clearly have a strategy for the World Cup in mind and we should have already done the same. If not, we are slow learners!

The next few weeks will really indicate whether the World Cup strategy is ontrack -- this is the final dress rehearsal.