T20 vs Tests: New year begins with a new reality for South Africa

Two former Australia captains have questioned whether South Africa's decision to send a makeshift Test squad to New Zealand creates a fork in the road for the future of the format. A former South African captain is already on one of those paths, which maybe tells us all we need to know.

While Steve Waugh and Michael Clarke stress the primacy of Test cricket, Graeme Smith, who played 117 Tests himself, is the commissioner of the SA20, the tournament that South Africa's Test regulars will play instead of touring New Zealand. Essentially, that is the issue that has sparked conversations around Test cricket in the first few days of 2024 and it isn't as clear cut as either side may make it seem.

To recap: Cricket South Africa (CSA) launched a T20 tournament with six teams owned by IPL-franchise owners in partnership with private broadcaster SuperSport last year. It followed two failed attempts at launching a T20 league aimed at securing financial sustainability for cricket in South Africa. The agreed window for the SA20 begins the week after the New Year's Test and ends in early February. Like most such tournaments around the world, it aimed to grab headlines through big-name players. And because CSA is the tournament's majority shareholder, it could decide that its centrally-contracted players should play the SA20 ahead of anything else. Even South Africa's international fixtures.

Last year, South Africa forfeited an ODI Super League series in Australia that counted towards World Cup qualification to launch the SA20 with its best players. This year, CSA is honouring its bilateral commitments and sending a Test squad to New Zealand while the SA20 is on, but with a new captain and potentially seven debutants. Cue the hand-wringing from Waugh and Clarke over the future of Test cricket.

It's not that CSA - or South Africans - don't care about Test cricket. The Boxing Day and New Year Test vibes are evidence of that. This country has pitches that produce some of the most exciting contests, always fields a competitive team, cheered on by a diverse fan base. But Test cricket can't pay CSA's bills or player salaries and the board has had to find other ways to make money to keep up with other countries raking it in through T20 leagues.

But CSA's own administration - not the current one, which is an important caveat - is also responsible for the problems it faces. Former CEO Thabang Moroe, who was fired for serious misconduct in August 2020 almost ran the organisation into the ground by alienating the South African Cricketers' Association (SACA), misusing funds, and losing sponsors. CSA is still recovering and the SA20, which turned a profit in its first season, four years ahead of schedule, is a crucial part of that. And so CSA can't be blamed for prioritising and asking its best players to play the SA20. But we can ask why the board agreed to a tour of New Zealand at the same time as the SA20.

CSA announced its plans for a T20 league in April 2022, while the 2023-2027 FTP was released in August 2022. In a statement issued today, CSA said "the window for the SA20 had not been determined at that stage." Some sources dispute this but CSA insists that "once it became apparent that there would be a clash, we made every effort to find another mutually suitable time-slot for this two-Test series in consultation with New Zealand Cricket."

CSA did make space in the SA20 schedule for a home ODI series against England last year, so did it do enough to try and create a window for the Tests in New Zealand? Insiders have revealed that because South Africa agreed to tour New Zealand when Covid-19 restrictions were still in force, they were expecting a little quid pro quo and asked for the Tests to be played later in February. New Zealand Cricket (NZC) said no because they were scheduled to host Australia, after which players would have to leave for the IPL. CSA then asked for the New Zealand Tests to take place during the IPL, which would have left both teams depleted, but NZC declined. CSA finally asked NZC to move the Tests to 2025 but the only gap New Zealand have is from March, which is close to IPL territory once again. So with no room in the calendar, the upshot is that South Africa are sending a depleted squad to New Zealand.

Has anyone asked New Zealand what they make of all this? In July last year, NZC said the agreed dates were not negotiable and that it considered South Africa a "popular and formidable Test team" and "an important part" of the summer schedule. After seeing South Africa's depleted squad, it remains to be seen whether they still think so, and more importantly whether the broadcasters and corporate sponsors of the series still think so. But that's not what Waugh and Clarke are worried about.

Waugh said in a post on Instagram that "history and tradition must count for something," and that "if we stand by and allow profits to be the defining criteria the legacy of Bradman, Grace and Sobers will be irrelevant," which is easier to say in Australia, whose players are well paid. Some Australian players even skip IPL seasons because they can afford to but we'll use that tournament to help illustrate the financial picture: one US dollar is about 1.48 Australian dollars at today's exchange rate, but about 18.54 South African rands. So while Mitchell Starc's record IPL deal of INR 24.75 crore (USD 2.98 million approximately) is hardly small change in Australia at around 4.38 million dollars, it would be stupendous in South Africa at more than 55 million rands. So even South Africans with smaller contracts at the IPL, CPL, Hundred, BPL and PSL are making big money away from home, and that reinforces why CSA had to create and prioritise the SA20.

But is money all that matters? Not to everyone. Rookie batter David Bedingham withdrew from the SA20 draft - he could because he doesn't have a CSA contract - so that he could tour New Zealand but he is one of very few. Most South African players could not do what he did and it seems they are resigned to their T20 fate even though some see Test cricket as valuable.

Dean Elgar, South Africa's stand-in captain for the New Year's Test against India, doesn't have an SA20 deal and will retire from Test cricket this week. "Speaking to the guys in the changeroom, especially the younger guys, they still very much live for this format [Test cricket]," Elgar said, but the situation is "out of the players hands, it's out of our coaches hands, and team management's hands." He said it was "a little bit sad that it has gone in that direction."

But Elgar also remembers that when CSA gave its players a choice in 2022, all of them sacrificed playing Tests against Bangladesh to get to the IPL on time. He was critical of the players then and even questioned their loyalty. Now, with his international career ending, Elgar hopes things will change but accepts there's little he can do about it. "The future is not in my hands. The future is up to administrators making right decisions for players and longevity of format, especially our Test format," he said. "I would like to see younger guys coming through and experiencing what I have experienced over 12 years. It would be sad to see us play two-Test series. For me, that's not a fitting way for those guys to learn about this format."

So who pulls the strings? Is it, as Waugh suggested, the ICC along with the boards of India, England and Australia? And should they create a "premium, equal match fee" for all Test players? Australian opener Usman Khawaja supported the idea, but when India captain Rohit Sharma was asked on the eve of the New Year's Test in Cape Town whether the BCCI has a responsibility to protect Test cricket, he seemed to agree but then indicated the responsibility had to be shared. "I think so. Absolutely," he said at first, before continuing. "Test cricket is something that we all have to protect and give importance to. It's just not one or two countries' responsibility. It's all the nations who are playing. It's their responsibility to make sure that we keep it entertaining. It's everyone's duty to make sure that it stays nice and healthy and it stays competitive."

Rohit comes from a position of privilege because India don't have to compete with T20 leagues to field their best Test team. They don't play international cricket during the IPL and their players don't play any other leagues. "Luckily we don't have those kinds of problems to deal with," Rohit said with a telling smile.

Instead, it was another former South African captain who juggled answers about a game he will soon no longer play but, in his words, will always love. "As long as I am around, I am going to be a Test fanatic," Elgar said. "A lot of our guys are Test fanatics but opportunities need to come our way, otherwise the conversations are just going to be continuous and you are never going to put it to bed. We are just players and we can fight as much as we can but it's up to the powers that be to make the right calls for us."

Except no-one really knows what the right call is.