Why Wanderers is not hosting a Test

It is like going to England and not playing a Test at the Lord’s. The Indian team stays closest to the Wanderers Stadium, arguably the best cricket ground in South Africa and one of the most revered cricket venues in the world, but is not scheduled to play a Test here.

Inquiries reveal that the reasons are quite a few, and not least the problems inside the Gauteng Cricket Board (GCB), the association that manages the Wanderers. There are claims and counter claims over the allocation of the Test matches.

Interestingly enough, India’s only Test win in South Africa had come at this fabled ground in 2006. The Wanderers were to lose out on a Test match against England too last year but a match was allocated to the stadium at the last minute.

“Like in India, we too have a rotation policy. The Wanderers will host India in an ODI on January 15,” said Ray Mali, the former president of the International Cricket Council. Mali heads an interim committee that is looking after the affairs of GCB currently. He has a mandate for two years to set the GCB in order.

Almost similar was the response of Dr Nyoka, the current president of Cricket South Africa. “It is not the right time to host a Test at the Wanderers. We have decided on the venues looking at the public interest. Two of the three Tests are in the coastal cities. In this time of the year, many South Africans prefer to be in the coastal cities,” Nyoka said.

But some former GCB members claim that the Wanderers was being ignored by Cricket South Africa after they raised questions over the real deal between CSA and the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) over the conduct of the Indian Premier League (IPL) in 2009.

“Since the IPL, things have not been very smooth for the GCB,” said a former GCB official. After the IPL, the then GCB establishment was voted out and a new set of office bearers took charge. Later, it was replaced by an interim committee headed by Mali.

However, Gerald Majola, CSA’s powerful Chief Executive Officer, denied problems between the national body and the Gauteng Board. “GCB and CSA have a very good relationship,” Majola, who was recently cleared by an internal CSA inquiry on the issue of bonuses to the staff, asserted.