UCB gives SA team manager vote of confidence

With South Africa having conceded the psychological and public relations advantage to Australia during the current Test series already won by the home team, the United Cricket Board of South Africa has taken the unprecedented step of issuing a vote of confidence in team manager Goolam Rajah.

In a statement released in Johannesburg on New Year's Eve, UCB chief executive Gerald Majola says that: "Rajah was a long-serving manager and that the UCBSA was confident in him and in the manner in which he had conducted himself on the tour to Australia".

The statement goes on to say that: "it was not fair for the media to compare the South African team on tour away from home in Australia with the Australian team on their home soil".

The statement makes particular reference to an article published in the Johannesburg Sunday Times at the weekend in which senior cricket writer Colin Bryden criticised the performance of Rajah on tour. Bryden, who is also the editor of the Mutual and Federal SA Cricket Annual, South African cricket's official mouthpiece, said that Rajah "whose name might as well be Dr No for his contribution to public relations on tour, flatly refused all requests for photographs or coverage of the team's Christmas luncheon. He wouldn't even allow an SABC news crew, flown to Australia at some expense, inside the room."

Bryden also said that: "The players started the tour suspicious of the media and this has grown into something approaching paranoia, which embraces anyone not actually in the team. Board members and selectors, too, are seemingly barely tolerated. Instead of offering wise counsel, or cracking the whip, the manager panders to the introspective urgings of the cricketers".

Rajah has been in charge of the South African team since 1998 when he took the side to England. Previously he had been assistant manager with a UCB board member being appointed manager of the team on a tour-by-tour basis.

Rajah's tenure has not been an easy one. The match-fixing scandal broke shortly after he had taken the team to India in early 2000 while earlier this year six members of the touring party were disciplined after admitting to smoking marijuana during South Africa's Test series against the West Indies in the Caribbean.

That the UCB should have seen fit to publicly endorse the manager, even as the South African tour of Australia crumbles about the side, is unusual to say the least. Cynics will no doubt point to the votes of confidence given to English football managers shortly before their dismissals.

Whether this will be the case in Rajah's case remains to be seen. What is certain, however, is that the post mortems after the tour, following Australia's comprehensive capture of the Test series, will focus on the roles played by Rajah, team captain Shaun Pollock, coaches Graham Ford and Corrie van Zyl and Rushdi Magiet's selection panel.