2023 World Cup won't be Rob Walter's cross to bear, says CSA's Nkwe

Cricket South Africa's director of cricket Enoch Nkwe said newly appointed Proteas white-ball coach Rob Walter won't be strictly judged on the 2023 World Cup that'll be hosted by India later this year.

The Proteas still need to qualify for that tournament and have five games to achieve that when they play England in three ODIs later this month, along with two against the Netherlands in March and April.

Should they fail at the automatic qualification hurdle, they still have the World Cup qualifiers in Zimbabwe to navigate to get themselves to India for later in the year.

It's already a tall order for Walter, who will be leaving the Central Stags to join the Proteas as of next month.

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Nkwe said would be unfair for them to make Walter sleep in a bed that he didn't make, even though they still harbour hopes of automatic qualification for India later this year.

"We're not going to strictly judge him on the 2023 World Cup," Nkwe said.

"We do understand that what transpired before his arrival was complicated by us. I know Rob wants to do well.

"He wants every opportunity as a white ball team to do well and win the World Cup. The energies will be invested in qualifying for the World Cup.

"That's the first focus, but also doing so without losing focus of the bigger picture. It will be a fine balance, but the aim is to qualify for the World Cup, but also to deal with goals in small goals in small phases.

"It's almost like we'll have two plans in mind as we look towards the 2027 World Cup, with one looking at the next eight months.

"Then there's the medium to long term plan where we understand we'll be losing some big name players.

"The focus will be on this