Johannesburg — Cricket South Africa’s high performance management is implementing more stringent fitness standards as part of its attempt to bridge the gap between provincial and international cricket.
Fitness is back in the spotlight after Lions all-rounder Sisanda Magala, was effectively suspended from his team’s opening two matches in the T20 Challenge for failing to meet CSA’s fitness requirements.
“We want to drive the same system as the Proteas. Some of the challenges that we face is that when players come from provincial level into the national team, you can see there is a massive gap from a fitness point of view,” said CSA’s director of cricket Enoch Nkwe.
Magala is one of SA’s top all-rounders in the limited-overs formats, but has fallen short of CSA’s fitness standards a couple of times. Last season it cost him a spot in the national team and at the start of the 2022-23 season, he has now missed matches for his province.
The decision to strictly enforce the new standards followed a coach’s conference and then a strength and conditioning workshop that took place in the off-season. All the coaches and provincial administrators agreed to adhere to the new policy. The Lions confirmed on Wednesday that Magala had failed to complete a two kilometre time trial in eight minutes and thirty seconds as per CSA’s standards.
“He is not the only player,” said Nkwe, who added that five players across the two divisions were not allowed to play because they weren’t fit enough. “We cannot have a situation at domestic cricket, which is in a sense semi-professional and yet that is the strong feeder to the national team.
“From a skills point of view our cricketers are some of the most talented globally, but what is setting us back is (some players not adhering to fitness requirements.) You see it with our fielding, and I’m not happy in terms of our fielding standards, and it's purely because our fitness base is not where it is supposed to be in general. We are asking for minimum standards (to be achieved), not elite standards.
“We’ve seen how players have struggled when they’ve stepped up to the national side and we’ve seen the questions being asked about these players, which leads to questions about domestic standards. But we are saying we want to up the standards in general. We want to be the best system in the world and we need to start somewhere.”
Magala was the recipient of three prizes at CSA’s national awards last summer, and is viewed as one of the premier limited-overs players in SA. In the recent SA20 auction, the 31-year-old was picked up for R5.4million. That tournament will take place outside of CSA’s authority and thus players are not required to meet the same fitness standards.
Nkwe stressed that the stance on Magala, was not a case of CSA picking on one player. “When it comes to fitness as a professional sportsperson, there should not be a debate. We should be debating performance, but we cannot debate performance if guys don’t have a good base from a fitness point of view,” he said.
The door isn’t closed on Magala or the other players who have not met the fitness requirements. “We are going to work with them together with the provinces, to take them forward,” said Nkwe.
The Lions had Magala on a stringent fitness programme throughout the off-season and claim that he is close to achieving the required standards. He was included in their squad for the T20 Challenge because players' names had to be submitted two weeks before the competition started. The union remains optimistic that Magala can achieve the fitness targets and will be available at some stage during the T20 Challenge.
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