Cricket SA to host first majority-independent board annual general meeting | Sport

Lawson Naidoo. (Photo: Facebook)

In a sign that the cricket crisis is tempering down, Cricket South Africa (CSA) will host its first majority-independent annual general meeting on Saturday (10:00).

CSA last held their AGM under acrimonious circumstances in June this year where resistance to the cricket governing body having a majority-independent board was finally broken. 

Lawson Naidoo was elected the new CSA board chairperson at that last meeting, however, there were squabbles about whether former CSA president Advocate Norman Arendse could serve as an independent director.

After days of wrangling thereafter, Arendse, who also served as a lead independent director in the past, was elected onto the board.

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The period also marked the end of governmental intervention as the Sports Minister Nathi Mthethwa-appointed interim board handed reins over to Naidoo and Co.

Prior to that, CSA had spent nearly two years without holding an AGM and this will be their first permanent board annual meeting in the post-Chris Nenzani era.

Nenzani resigned as president in August 2020 prior to the release of the Fundudzi Forensic Services report into cricket’s affairs.

Saturday’s meeting takes place in the backdrop of the Proteas set to compete at the T20 World Cup in the UAE and the Social Justice and Nation-building project’s resumption on 18 October.

Proteas head coach Mark Boucher has also been dogged by racism accusations stemming out of the transformation hearings chaired by Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza.

While the organisation has stabilised administratively, directors must now devise ways of renewing the cricket spirit in the country and rallying corporate SA behind the Proteas brand.

The men’s Proteas have been without a marquee sponsor since headliner Standard Bank pulled out in December 2019, opting not to renew their reported R300 million sponsorship when it expired in April 2020.