Saturday, 2 November 2013 00:00
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ESPNCricinfo: Cricket South Africa (CSA) Chief Executive Haroon Lorgat has said that his position is not untenable and that there are other areas in South Africa’s cricket administration where he could make a difference. Lorgat had been withdrawn by CSA from dealing with matters relating to the ICC or the BCCI until an independent investigation into the controversial comments made by the ICC’s former legal head David Becker, and Lorgat’s alleged role in it, was completed.
“I offered the board on Sunday past to step aside until the Indian tour was confirmed and until the allegation against me was cleared. I’ve got nothing to fear,” Lorgat told Eyewitness News. “I did not want to be the person that would have held up (the tour) or had the tour cancelled. I was happy to stand aside and offer to the board to have someone else take care of it, because if that’s what it takes for the tour to go ahead, no one person is bigger than the tour.
“I don’t believe my position is untenable. There are plenty other things that need to be done at CSA. We’ve got a program of development that needs to be revisited, there are transformation issues that need to be dealt with, there are competitions to unfold, there’s a Twenty20 competition that we have not fully exploited.
“We’ve got that scheduled for January and I would love to see our international players playing in that competition. There is a lot to be done and to suggest it’s an untenable state. I am looking forward to getting my focus in areas where I feel I can make a difference.”
Although there was no official statement, CSA’s appointment of Lorgat as its Chief Executive despite a series of run-ins between him and the BCCI during his tenure as ICC chief seemed to have cast a shadow over India’s tour of South Africa.
The BCCI, which had earlier raised concerns about Lorgat being in the running for CSA’s top job, rejected the original itinerary for the tour that had three Tests, seven ODIs and two T20s pencilled in. However, the eventual announcement of the tour ended an uncertain few months that severely tested the relations between the BCCI and CSA.
