BREAKFAST AT the Waldorf Hotel, Friday of the Lord's Test. Dr. Ali Bacher pops a couple of mysterious looking pills and bolts back some orange juice. He spots Brian McMillan's villainous jaw hovering over the never ending buffet. `Morning Brian,' he chirps, eager to keep peckers up. `Keep on going, all right?'

Shortly afterwards, while Bacher is asserting that the ICC's movers and shakers are a distinct improvement on their predecessors (`Qualified people are coming through'.) Hansie Cronje moseys towards the bacon with purposeful tread.

`Captain,' exclaims Bacher. `How are you?' Cronje comes over to out table. `Well batted yesterday,' Bacher enthuses. `Its going to be a good day, captain. Just control your No. 6, will you?' Cue hearty chunter. Cronje smirks gently. `Tell him it's not a 30 over game,' Bacher adds, grinning the indulgent grin of the understanding parent. Of cricket's very own Godfather.

 AS MANAGING director of the United Cricket Board of South Africa and chairman of the ICC Development Committee, Ali Bacher, now a vigorous 56, in a unique position to influence and chart the course of cricket history, and more besides. `Dr. Bacher.' declared Nelson Mandela, `is South Africa'.

His priority, not unnaturally, is his homeland. Without him, the game there would almost certainly still be riven by the siege mentality and indelible prejudices that have left the Republic's monstrous rugger-buggers in such a pitiful state. He acknowledges that inconsistencies remain, that there's oodles more to be done before South Africa can field a representative XI with even a soupcon of verisimilitude. The point is, he has shown what is possible, that meaningful and lasting progress can be made. For that alone he deserves our undying gratitude. Not to say forgiveness.

Makhaya Ntini comes over to pay his respects. Bacher shakes his hand warmly then continues to hang on to those slender, tapering fingers while conversing with a colleague. Hanging on to the future.

To spend any decent length of time with the world's best-known gynaecologist is to be convinced that he cares. Passionately. Even 45 minutes will do. Consummate politician he may be. Supreme opportunist too. But at least he has a worthy cause, not to mention the energy and determination to fight tooth and nail for it.

When I note that the structure of the limited-overs game could learn much from baseball – especially the frequent rotation of innings – the riposte is one that would have done Lord Snooty proud: `To sell the game to the Americans we'll probably have to come up with a game that lasts three to three and a half hours, which is why we've just merged Australia's Super Eights and New Zealand's Cricket Max. And we're (the UCB) introducing split innings in our domestic one-day tournament next year. But cricket's a better game, a much better game tham baseball.'

`Every Test series will be for the world championship. Every Test will have value. It's just around the corner'

 BETWEEN diversions we conduct a whistlestop tour of the full life and seldom tribulation-free times of Dr. Aron Bacher (a childhood chum dubbed him `Ali' after the well known thief). From his parents fleeing, Lithuania for Jo'burg before the Holocaust, his prodigious teenage deeds for Balfour Park and the `tragedy' of Barry Richards, via his `Damascan conversion' during the Gatting- Graveney rebel tour, to the pros and cons of positive discrimination in the Rainbow Nation.

He even affords a glimpse of the Family Man. At HQ the previous afternoon, he had been a bag of nerves while Dominic Cork was getting the better of his nephew Adam (whom I shamefully cite as his son; a common boob, he assures me). `He's my son when he's doing well', chuckles Uncle Ali. `Clyde Walcott feels he plays too much on the front foot.' Concern is writ large.

Agitation creeps in just once, when I echo the consensus view that that week's ICC conflab had failed to uproot sufficient trees, not least over the much-trumpeted `world championship'. `What didn't come out that should have come out'. Bacher insists, exasperation plain, `is that there's now a unanimous agreement to have reciprocal tours over a span of four to five years, with a minimum three Test per series. England haven't toured Pakistan for 11 years. Every series will be for the world championship. Every Test will have value. Its just around the corner. So I don't know why everybody's saying nothing's happening.'

In the interests of logistics and harmony, are England and Australia truly prepared to cut their cycle to twice a decade? `Well … England, yes. Australia? Not great about that (idea). But we're nearly there. We mustn't disturb traditional rivalries. South Africa have a couple of commitments, like Australia back-to-back every four years, but we're happy to make it every five.'

And yes, glory be, Bacher can also see the sense in awarding extra points for away wins. `The point is, a one-off world championship is not practical; a league is the only way. And we've established that. But I did not see one positive article on the meeting. To me, that was the positive. It'll be forthcoming in the next six months.' After 121 years, he might reasonably ask, what is six months?

 AMID IT ALL came a rather startling confession. On his Test debut at Lord's 33 Junes ago, his approach had verged on the frivolous. `Almost went first ball. Went just over middle stump. The occasion got the better of me … I was very nervous but I went to the opposite extreme. I talked myself into looking at it another way. When I went out there I was almost flippant.'

To picture the game's most accomplished wheeler-dealer behaving with anything resembling rashness requires a leap of the imagination. But Bacher is the first to admit it was not his last error of judgement. Impetuosity, kindled by that undying passion, has not always been his friend. And he recognises the folly of the tours he once orchestrated in defiance of the Glen-eagles Agreement, not to say most of the civilised world.

`We wanted to regenerate the game in South Africa. Some form of international competition, if not Tests, to motivate the players and draw crowds. It did have the desired effect over a period of time but, in retrospect, it was wrong. We never realised the extent of the anger of the black people.

`Not until the Gatting tour [in 1989–90] did we realise it. I was in a terrible situation. It was a very unhappy time, very unhappy. You had to get permission to demonstrate from a magistrate. But at Kimberley the magistrate turned the application down. So I pushed him to let it go on. I facilitated the march! Crazy.

`We realised we couldn't go on after two or three matches. Gatting and his men were due to go down to Cape Town. We were lucky nobody had been killed yet. So we called a board meeting and that was it. There were seven guidelines regarding cancellation and I went beyond them. I also cancelled the second tour. I just knew that was the last time we'd have a rebel tour. I conceded that right away.'

Does he also concede – as reported – that critical errors were made in the constitution of the UCB? `The papers didn't record that properly. Things

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