Let’s celebrate 25 years of wonderful cricket!

CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat. Photo: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi

CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat. Photo: Lakruwan Wanniarachchi

Published Jul 25, 2016

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HAROON LORGAT

CHIEF EXECUTIVE, CRICKET SOUTH AFRICA

25 years ago at the time of unification, I am sure that every single one of us would have harboured our own dreams of a great and glorious future for the sport of cricket in South Africa.

To date I believe that a lot of those dreams have been fulfilled save for the one big elusive dream of the Proteas lifting the World Cup! We have though won two other ICC global tournaments – the ICC Knock-Out Trophy in 1998, which was the forerunner of the Champions Trophy – and recently the under-19 World Cup.

And we have surely surpassed ourselves with the glorious number of world-class cricketers this country has produced and who have completely re-written the records of pre-unity.

This includes two world Test batting partnership records, four bowlers who have taken more than 300 Test wickets, the most capped international captain of all time, the most successful wicketkeeper of all time and, statistically at least, the greatest batting all-rounder the world has ever seen.

Added to that we ranked No.1 in all three international forms of the game for a period of time and we were delightfully the No. 1 rated Test team for more than three consecutive years.

Excellence in playing is not possible without excellence off the field. We have been well served by a succession of quality administrators including the late Adv. Percy Sonn who achieved the accolade of being elected as the President of the ICC.

The quality of our administration was best reflected in the outstanding ICC World Cup event we delivered in 2003 and which undoubtedly set a new bar for ICC global tournaments.

Let us celebrate the past 25 wonderful years we enjoyed and let us roll up our sleeves to work even harder in future to achieve our vision to make cricket a truly national sport accessible to all. I am so sure that there is no limit to what we can achieve once we successfully unlock all the human potential that is available within our country.

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