Ken Borland

Mfuneko Ngam points to the north-east and says “Vuyisa comes from that mountain over there”, referring to Vuyisa Makhaphela, the Warriors opening batsman and his home village in the foothills of the Amatole Mountains in Alice.

We were standing alongside the main cricket field of the University of Fort Hare rural academy that Ngam runs in the heartland of Black African cricket, shortly after Cricket South Africa and Momentum announced that they are going to invest significantly in the joint venture programme that is undoubtedly going to produce successors to the likes of international fast bowlers Ngam and Makhaya Ntini, both of whom come from the same area.

Earlier, Raymond Booi, the Border Cricket Board’s high performance coach, had pointed out Mdingi village, lower down in the foothills, where Ntini and more recently Aya Gqamane (who, according to CSA development consultant Greg Hayes “never missed the ball with his plank as a little youngster”) come from.

Thando Mnyaka and Somila Seyibokwe are also members of the Warriors squad who hail from the same area and have all come through the Fort Hare academy.

“Vuyisa gave up cricket, he wanted nothing to do with it. But I managed to convince him to come and register at our MSC Business College and for the last two years he has been with the Warriors,” Ngam says.
The educational aspect is a key component of the program, because not everybody is going to make it in top-class cricket, as Ngam stresses.
“We are trying to build holistic cricketers, they must study and play. When we first started, nobody wanted to study but these kids need to understand that they need something to fall back on. That also takes the pressure off them when it comes to playing cricket.”
As a company, Momentum have placed a special emphasis on education leading to financial wellness, and Danie van den Bergh, the head of brand, said the academy is a perfect fit.
“They’ve built a dream here, we love it and we have bought into it. It’s a common thread in Africa that education is a key to success and if we can link sport to education then we can leave a legacy long after our six years with Cricket South Africa are over. It’s about long-term values and spreading the love of the game to everybody,” Van den Bergh said.
Amongst the improvements recently completed at the academy are a residence for the 15 cricketers per year that are in the programme, indoor and outdoor nets, a pristine outfield, large sightscreens and an electronic scoreboard.
If this initiative could be repeated in all the provinces, imagine the talent that could be unearthed and, as CSA chief executive Haroon Lorgat pointed out, the rural areas have also produced legends such as Dale Steyn and Lance Klusener.
But the one characteristic that most rural areas in this country share is that they are poor and the Eastern Cape is particularly hard up, judging by the condition of some of the roads and abandoned factories. But nevertheless they are rightfully proud of their history and what they have produced, including numerous great leaders starting with Madiba and Oliver Tambo.
“The University of Fort Hare has a rich history and people know about it without knowing where Alice is! A former ICC head, Ray Mali, comes from here, as do two former ministers of sport, Ngconde Balfour and Makhenkosi Stofile. There are also famous schools like Lovedale and Healdtown here.

“It’s a tower of knowledge but people in the Eastern Cape are so poor that they don’t benefit. But they’ve built a beautiful facility here where African cricket was first played,” Border president Thando Ganda said.

“We’re very humbled that CSA are using Fort Hare as a venue. We’re often second-best in Border but an academy like this, with its unified approach, is something different and we’re sure cricketers from here will now come out on top,” Noel Knicklebein, the university’s deputy registrar said.

The likes of Queen’s, Dale, Selborne and Hudson Park have a close relationship with the academy and boys placed in those schools have regularly made provincial teams. Two girls from the programme have gone on to represent the Proteas Women and eight other students have successfully completed their varsity degrees.

The hills of the Eastern Cape have once again started to provide memorable talent.

Residents of Gauteng have become accustomed to three different cricket unions – the Gauteng Cricket Board, Northerns Cricket Union and Easterns Cricket Union – controlling the game in the province, but this is likely to change as Cricket South Africa accede to Sascoc’s demand that the sport be administered along the same lines as the geopolitical boundaries of the country.

People in the Cape can expect the same change as Eastern Province, Border and Kei will need to merge into a single Eastern Cape controlling body, while Western Province, Boland and South-Western Districts will need to do the same in the Western Cape.

That change is along already-existing franchise lines, and KwaZulu-Natal, Free State and Northern Cape (Griqualand West team) will be in a similar position. But Gauteng will need to reorganise itself because there are two franchises – the Highveld Lions and Titans – based in that province.

CSA chief executive officer Haroon Lorgat confirmed that the change is in the offing, but added that they can still keep their same franchise and competition structure.

“That’s the next big thing we are planning, we might have to change the demarcations of our unions to mirror the geopolitical boundaries. But we can still have the same franchises and semi-professional teams and it won’t affect our competitions.

“But we’ll need to have nine controlling bodies from each of the provinces. So the Lions and Titans can still play and be run as separate teams, but they’ll need to have an overall Gauteng board above them,” Lorgat explained to The Citizen at the announcement of Momentum’s R475 000 backing of the academy at the University of Fort Hare in Alice.

Lorgat was critical of government’s support for grassroots development at that function but said the new geopolitically-aligned structure can improve the relationship between CSA and the state.

“It can be beneficial because then the unions can go to provincial government as one entity. I think it will help because then the provincial government is just dealing with one board. At the moment, the Titans, Lions and Easterns all go to the Gauteng provincial government for assistance and maybe they don’t know who to help?” Lorgat said.

At the moment, government expects CSA to fill their teams with previously disadvantaged players, but offers scant support in terms of the infrastructure that is essential to achieving that. Even the academy at Fort Hare, in the heartland of Black African cricket, has received nothing from the state.

“People think transformation is about black and white, but in my view Lance Klusener and Dale Steyn are both transformation products because they come from remote, rural areas. If it wasn’t for these programs, like our joint venture at the University of Fort Hare, then these jewels would not be found. We have not yet unlocked the potential in our country,” Lorgat said.

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Cricket South Africa counted the cost last year of their summer of Test cricket being disrupted, but CEO Haroon Lorgat is optimistic that the current troubles between the West Indies and their administrators will not lead to another international tour to these shores being severely curtailed or cancelled.

The West Indies team are currently on strike and at loggerheads with both their own players’ association (Wipa) and the board (WICB), having pulled out of their tour to India after just four ODIs. If the impasse is not resolved before December, then they may have to send a second-string outfit to South Africa or the tour might be cancelled.

But Lorgat is confident that the issues will be resolved and the best West Indian team will tour, particularly if they accept the offer of assistance from the Federation of International Cricketers Association (Fica), headed by South African Tony Irish.

“I’ve spoken to the West Indies board in the last 24 hours and they are reasonably confident that they will be able to keep their promise and tour here. I’m optimistic that they’ll be able to work through their issues.

“In two weeks’ time the RamSlam T20 Challenge starts here and I was told that the NOCs [No-Objection Certificates] would be granted to the West Indian players involved. There are some big players coming here, including captain Dwayne Bravo, and I’ll be able to talk to them then.

“Plus Tony Irish has offered his assistance, so there are many angles we can work from. The West Indian players are always keen to come to South Africa, so although it’s early days and there’s still lots of emotion, I’m quite confident that we’ll get things worked out,” Lorgat told The Citizen yesterday.

An important ace in CSA’s hands is that the tour to South Africa is the West Indies’ last before the World Cup and Lorgat said there is an eagerness amongst the Caribbean players to perform in that showpiece event.

“The players don’t want to miss out on the World Cup so I’m sure sanity will prevail. It could have been worse: it’s an explosive situation that has been simmering for a while and it could have happened while they were in South Africa!” Lorgat pointed out.

The current strike is the fourth to have affected West Indies cricket over the last decade or so and is centred on Wipa president Wavell Hinds signing a new collective bargaining agreement that results in a significant paycut for the players, as high as 70% for some.

The WICB are now holding the players to that signed contract. Wipa happens to have acted similarly a few years ago when the then-WICB chief executive mistakenly signed a deal giving the players $35 000 more per match-day.

Irish, who rose to the post of executive chairperson of Fica in June, told The Citizen that he had to offer his assistance because “the implications of this issue go far beyond West Indies cricket”.

CSA president Chris Nenzani

Cricket South Africa’s affiliates on Saturday voted to extend the term of president Chris Nenzani, three independent directors and three non-independent directors by another year.

Last year the CSA Board was recomposed to include seven non-independent directors, including the president and vice-president, and five independent directors, and the terms of all directors were set at three years.

But at Saturday’s annual general meeting at OR Tambo International Airport, a special resolution was passed to stagger the tenure of the directors and avoid wholesale changes to the board every three years.

According to the resolutions, Nenzani, three independent directors and three non-independent directors will now stay in office until the conclusion of the 2016 AGM.

The explanatory notes issued with the resolution stated: “The challenge, however, is that each three-year term will present an election conundrum in that all the directors’ terms of appointment would expire and potentially a number of the directors might not be re-elected, meaning that the board could be challenged by the loss of valuable institutional knowledge and memory, thereby impacting the smooth running of the company.”

The AGM also approved resolutions postponing the expansion of the board (as agreed during the Nicholson Commission of Inquiry) to 16 directors (seven independent and nine non-independent) to “an appropriate time” and removing a clause in their Memorandum of Incorporation stating that CSA shall comply with the constitution of Sascoc [South African Sports Confederation and Olympic Committee) and any directives issued by them.

“It is submitted that we should not expressly document this in our MOI in the event that we may in future, for good reason, be forced to legally challenge a directive from any such organisation,” the explanatory notes stated.

 http://www.sport24.co.za/Cricket/Proteas/CSA-extends-term-of-president-20140913