Patrick Moroney appointed as new convenor selector for South Africa men's team

Former national selector Patrick Moroney has been appointed as South Africa’s new convenor selector for the men’s senior side. Moroney will take office on August 1 and his first series in charge will be Proteas’ white-ball tour of Australia, starting on August 10.

Moroney has been part of selection which dates back to 2001. He has worked with the South African National Academy, the emerging sides, and was in the line to become South Africa’s convenor of selectors in 2019. But, he lost to Victor Mpitsang and was appointed to work alongside him.

Moroney worked as convenor selector for the Under-19 men’s side, which included last year’s World Cup selection. Kwena Maphaka and Lhuan-dre Pretorius were among his picks at that tournament.

"His deep understanding of the game, combined with decades of experience in talent identification and selection across various levels, makes him the ideal person for the job," Enoch Nkwe, director of national teams and High Performance, said in a statement.

Shukri Conrad appointed as SA's men’s all-format head coach

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South African head coach Shukri Conrad will have to work with a selection convener for the first time since his appointment in January 2023. At the time, Nkwe did away with the selection panel, which was chaired by Mpitsang and Moroney, the national coach and the skipper. Since then, picking squads and teams were solely handled by the national coaches.

Conrad was put in charge of the Test side and made several surprising selections, including promoting Wiaan Mulder to No. 3, while Rob Walter had the white-ball job. Walter faced criticism from various quarters over taking a squad with only one black African player for the 2024 T20 World Cup, where the Proteas reached the final and lost to India.

The CSA’s board had since insisted on the reinstatement of a convenor of selectors, although not a full panel. In May, following the conclusion of interviews, Conrad was given the role of handling all-format coaching, and Nkwe noted the reason to bring back a convenor of selectors to offer support to the coach whose plate is already full.

"We needed to review, and look at areas in terms of where we can actually support the coach. We need to have more eyes on the ground as the coach is going to be focusing on performance," Nkwe said.

Conrad also admitted that he was happy to work with someone and hoped that person would be like-minded and who has got South African cricket and the Proteas at heart. During the period from late 2019 until early 2023, Mark Boucher acted as South Africa’s head coach, and at the time Mpitsang and Moroney had worked together.

The most debatable choice that panel made was changing a winning XI on the England tour in 2022. After South Africa won the opening Test at Lord’s, they picked a spinner on seamer-friendly pitch for the second Test at Old Trafford, which forced them to bat first on a difficult track.

As a result, they lost the match and then the series too. The panel also selected then-unknown Marco Jansen, who has since gone to represent South Africa in all formats.