Cricket SA edges closer to finding Graeme Smith's replacement: 'The process has been long'

Graeme Smith's successor is expected to be named by the end of June, says Cricket South Africa (CSA) CEO Pholetsi Moseki, one of five vacant positions the organisation is scrambling to fill.

Moseki admitted that they may have been a tad ambitious in aiming to fill all the vacancies speedily before running into some complexities of appointing the right people.

On top of the director of cricket, CSA is in the market for a new company secretary, CFO, chief commercial officer, and public affairs executive.

Sport24 reported last week that former Proteas assistant coach Enoch Nkwe and former Proteas spinner Robin Peterson were among the front-runners who were interviewed and shortlisted for the director of cricket role.

"I think we underestimated the complexity of filling these types of roles," said Moseki.

"We advertised the positions in March but because of the seniority and the nature of those positions, it wasn't as easy as we thought it would be to finish the process quite quickly. We thought it would be a month and that people would start 1 June - that was the plan.

"But I believe by the end of the month we would have announced at least four of the five positions - there is one we haven't really started with - and this includes the DOC.

"The process has been long, and you can imagine the number of interviews per position, and we had five executive positions to fill."

Whereas Smith could pick up the phone and call his international counterparts like Board of Control for Cricket in India president Sourav Ganguly, the new director of cricket might not offer the same gravitas that the former Proteas captain brought to the role.

Smith's international connections and the respect he commanded globally is understood to have aided CSA