Rainbow team torn apart by regionalism

Perhaps more sinister, however, is the growing schism in the team along provincial lines. Former selection convener Rushdi Magiet was forced to deny, as long ago as August 2000, that there was a developing Western Province clique and those who did not play for Western Province were regarded as ‘‘second rate players’’.

Gibbs, ticked off by his teammate and fellow opening batsman Gary Kirsten, had admitted how he missed Cronje’s leadership. Whether he misses his discussions with Cronje which led him to being conned into under-performing, for which he was banned for six months, or puffing marijuana in the West Indies, has not been disclosed. There is also the matter of a couple of disciplinary actions for which he was let off lightly.

As someone who swaggered around the team’s Newlands hotel in a leather jacket over New Year 2001, and drove an expensive German car with turbo boosters that would cost the average family of four almost two years’ salary, Gibbs has quite an extravagant reputation. In 1998 while in Sri Lanka during the A Team tour, he was continuously on his mobile, admitting at the time it was his ‘‘comfort zone’’.

At the recent launch of a biography, he badmouthed Pollock’s leadership. He is not the only one who has levelled criticism of Pollock’s captaincy, which is said to be done by numbers.

There are a few other theories floating around. Johannesburg-born and educated Graeme Smith had a few hard words with Pollock in a pre-tournament game over a decision which Australian umpire Darrel Hair dismissed as overreaction by the player.

Does it not suggest that the team’s efforts are being booby-trapped from within and that the 21-year-old bigmouth Smith is the leader of that particular backstabbing pack? After all, did he not demand that he open the batting against New Zealand at the Wanderers?

If this is in fact the case, it need more than platitudes from team coach Eric Simons that ‘‘all is well’’ and ‘‘there is no rift in the side’’ to dismiss the obvious feeling that all is not well. After all, when a non-Western Province player selected for a Test against Sri Lanka last year turns up in the dressing room and is made to feel he is not part of the team, it begs the question who is running the side.

It also suggests that there may be much more to Mornantau Hayward’s decision to give up playing for South Africa in favour of Worcestershire for the next two years. There are those who claim that Kepler Wessels — Hayward’s coach at Eastern Province — was responsible for the maverick bowler’s decision. It is easy to point fingers when all the facts are not known. Just as politicians have become adept to shifting the blame elsewhere, certain selectors and officials are pretty good at similar tactical dodges.

By the time Hayward is released from his county contract, Pollock’s tenure as team captain could be over; hopefully the Western Province clique — current players include Gary Kirsten, Kallis and Gibbs — will have been dismantled and Smith have learnt a few manners as well.

South Africa cannot afford this sort of internal Cape driven sabotage to a system that wrecked, rather than influenced, the game from 1894 until the 1991 unity.