- Cricket South Africa’s director of cricket Enoch Nkwe said newly-appointed Proteas white-ball coach Rob Walter wouldn’t be judged on the 2023 World Cup.
- The Proteas are already in a perilous position to qualify for the tournament based on their ranking in the ICC World Cup Super League log.
- CSA’s chief executive officer Pholetsi Moseki said they needed two national coaches due to the split volume of cricket for both formats.
Cricket South Africa’s director of cricket Enoch Nkwe said newly appointed Proteas white-ball coach Rob Walter won’t be strictly judged on the 2023 World Cup that’ll be hosted by India later this year.
The Proteas still need to qualify for that tournament and have five games to achieve that when they play England in three ODIs later this month, along with two against the Netherlands in March and April.
Should they fail at the automatic qualification hurdle, they still have the World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe to navigate to get themselves to India for later in the year.
It’s already a tall order for Walter, who will be leaving the Central Stags to join the Proteas as of next month.
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Nkwe said would be unfair for them to make Walter sleep in a bed that he didn’t make, even though they still harbour hopes of automatic qualification for India later this year.
“We’re not going to strictly judge him on the 2023 World Cup,” Nkwe said.
“We do understand that what transpired before his arrival was complicated by us. I know Rob wants to do well.
“He wants every opportunity as a white ball team to do well and win the World Cup. The energies will be invested in qualifying for the World Cup.
“That’s the first focus, but also doing so without losing focus of the bigger picture. It will be a fine balance, but the aim is to qualify for the World Cup, but also to deal with goals in small goals in small phases.
“It’s almost like we’ll have two plans in mind as we look towards the 2027 World Cup, with one looking at the next eight months.
“Then there’s the medium to long term plan where we understand we’ll be losing some big name players.
“The focus will be on this year’s World Cup and qualifying for it, but he won’t be purely judged on this year’s World Cup.”
CSA’s chief executive officer Pholetsi Moseki said the splitting of the coaching role that Mark Boucher vacated at the end of last year’s T20 World Cup in Australia was something that’s always been in their pipeline.
Moseki said the decision was also informed by the high volume of International Cricket Council events over the next eight years that demanded the splitting of the job.
Shukri Conrad was hired as the Test match coach who will also work with the high-performance structures during dormant Test match periods.
READ | Shukri Conrad, Proteas’ ‘calm’ new Test coach: ‘He understands our past, challenges and youngsters’
“The appointment of the DoC meant he came with his strategies, and one of the things he sold to us was the splitting of the coaching job,” Moseki said.
“It’s been successful for other countries, and this cycle going forward, there’s an ICC event every year for the next eight years.
“The white ball coach will be busy focussing on those events, but red ball cricket is key, and he will be busy.
“The red-ball coach will also be contributing to the high performance structure.”
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