We've got to ask some hard questions of Cricket Australia and challenge them: Graeme Smith

The Australia cricket team was scheduled to tour South Africa in March 2021 but Cricket Australia (CA) decided to cancel the tour at the eleventh hour citing the safety concerns for the players and staff amidst the growing number of coronavirus cases in SA. However, the same didn’t go well with Cricket South Africa (CSA) as they accused the Australian board for not thinking about CSA and have even lodged a complaint against them with the International Cricket Council (ICC).

Amidst the tension between the two cricketing bodies, Graeme Smith, Cricket South Africa’s director of cricket, heaped praises on the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) and the England and Wales Cricket Board (ECB) stating that the two boards have always been cooperative with South Africa and are willing to make things work smoothly.

Smith revealed that CSA is in talks with India and the two countries can have a number of tours against each other in the next cycle. The veteran also credited his good relations with BCCI President and former Indian captain Sourav Ganguly for the smooth camaraderie between CSA and BCCI.

“Myself and Sourav go a long way back, and we’ve had a number of conversations. India in particular has been very supportive of us. Hopefully in the next cycle we’ll have a number of tours against India that are pretty close to being finalised, actually. [ECB chief executive] Tom Harrison and the ECB have been brilliant as well,” Smith said, reported Cricbuzz.

“Even the way Tom handled the situation from behind the scenes [in December] with England was good. Those matches have already been rescheduled [though not announced]. There’s been a joint resolution and an understanding of that,” he added.

Graeme Smith opens on strained relations with Cricket Australia

Speaking on the controversial matter of strained relationship between CSA and Cricket Australia, Smith reckoned that working with Australia has always been troublesome as they aren’t keen to cooperate. The former South Africa captain further added that things have to improve now and he definitely has some hard questions for the Australian cricket board.

“Australia has been the one that’s stood out in terms of difficulties. We never found the same sense of working together that we did with the other two. So there’s things that need to be improved and we’ve got to ask some hard questions of them and challenge them. That’s important for world cricket.”

“It’s important that the members get together and support each other and try and find ways to get as much done as we possibly can. That added to the disappointment of Australia. Everyone [else] we’ve worked with has had that mindset and understood that. My sense is that Australia didn’t, and that’s what let us down. No matter what we offered them I doubt we would have been able to get them over the line,” he concluded.