Date:01/04/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/04/01/stories/2008040157201900.htm

Sport - Cricket

Administrators have lost the plot: Symcox

Principal Correspondent

Hyderabad: Veteran South African cricketer Pat Symcox says that the current situation in South Africa is the most embarrassing phase in the history of the game there.

“It is sad that the administrators of the sport have lost the plot. They are taking decisions which are affecting the players dramatically. If South African Cricket Board were to be a private company, it would have been taken to task for bringing disrepute to the sport,” an agitated Symcox told The Hindu on Sunday.

Symcox, in Hyderabad as a commentator for ICL, finds no merit in the Board’s insistence on the quota system. “We have been a democracy for 16 years now. This kind of administration is nonsense,” he said.

The former South African off-spinner received another shock when he got a letter from Nimbus productions stating that they could not utilise his services as commentator for the India-South Africa series since the BCCI is having problems with the ICL. “This is unbelievable. I am a journalist right now. How can they do this to me? This is totally unacceptable,” he said. But, he said he had no intentions of dragging the issue further.

Questioned whether he visualises a scenario similar to the 1978 Packer Series crisis with the emergence of ICL, Symcox said there was place for both ICL and the IPL.