South Africa's Cricketer of the Century, Graeme Pollock, has been appointed as a batting consultant to the UCB.

Pollock will report to the Director of Coaching, Anton Ferreira, and will be available to work with the national team, provincial teams and Plascon Academy. "It is great for us to have the expertise of a former player like Graeme available to our young players and we are proud to be able to keep him in the system," said Majola.

The UCBSA is proud to announce that two top sports broadcasters will be joining its Communications Department as the UCB implements its strategy of broadening its communication with the public through the media.

Gerald de Kock and Moabi Litheko have both worked at the SABC for a number of years and have both been involved in covering cricket as live sport and as a subject of public interest.

De Kock, who has been broadcasting on radio and television for 17 years, has been appointed Media Manager and will manage the media's coverage of cricket in general and the national team in particular. Litheko, currently covering sports for TV News, has been involved in broadcasting since 1984. He has been appointed as Communications Officer and will be responsible for communicating the message of cricket at both professional and amateur levels. Both appointments are effective from 1 September 2002.

"One of the main stumbling blocks preventing us from being more strategic in projecting our image through the media has been one of capacity in that one person has been performing these roles up until now. We believe with these two excellent appointments that we have increased our capacity to a department of three people who will all complement each other and which will result in us reaching the broadest possible audience. It is our aim to make cricket a truly national sport and we believe we will now be able to reach a national audience at the same time that we become more strategic in portraying our corporate image," said UCB CEO Gerald Majola today.

"Gerald de Kock is well known in the cricketing family and is respected as a broadcaster and an individual. He has won several awards for his coverage of sports, including cricket, and has a broad knowledge of the game. Through his experience of covering cricket as a news subject, Moabi Litheko has an extensive understanding of the game and the issues which confront it. He also has a thorough knowledge of community media and speaks eight of the official South African languages," Majola said. "We believe that these two men will work effectively in conjunction with the Communications Director, Bronwyn Wilkinson, in taking the message of cricket to all South Africans," he added.

© United Cricket Board of South Africa