Ken Borland

An independent arbitration panel, while criticising the process as being far from perfect, has found Cricket South Africa’s now former director of cricket Graeme Smith was not guilty of any unfair racial discrimination in his appointment of Mark Boucher as Proteas coach ahead of Enoch Nkwe.

CSA, acting on the “tentative” findings of their Social Justice and Nation-Building Report, alleged that Smith had shown racial bias against Nkwe, who was the interim coach of the Proteas when the former national captain took over as director of cricket in December 2019.

But the arbitrators, advocates Ngwako Maenetje SC and Michael Bishop, cleared Smith of any racism and instructed CSA to pay his costs for the entire arbitration.

Smith explained his rationale for choosing Boucher in the hearing, starting with his impression of the Proteas team under Nkwe and captain Faf du Plessis on their disastrous tour of India in 2019, for which he was one of the TV commentators.

Smith described the Proteas as being “rudderless”, their performance was “way off par” and there was “quite a lot of onfield infighting between the players”. He told the arbitrators that his view on the coaching situation might have been different if the Proteas were a more experienced team with a captain that was going to be around for the next 10 years.

“I felt that I needed a character that could handle … an extremely high pressurised position, you are at the cold [sic] face of the world media, the … crowds. … I felt the team at the time needed someone that had extensive … experience in dealing with conditions, with the pressures that come with the international game. I knew that this team was going to lose extensively up front, it was going to take time to build it,” Smith told the hearing.

The arbitrators found that Smith made it clear to CSA that Boucher would be his appointment as the new coach, there was no objection from CSA and no suggestion from them that this was unfair to Nkwe. The then chairman of the board, Chris Nenzani, told Smith that he had the authority to appoint coaches and CSA never insisted on proper processes.

There was also a time factor because Smith could only make the appointments on December 11, 2019 after he was appointed director of cricket, and the Test series against England began on December 26, with the Proteas needing to assemble 8-10 days before that.

The arbitrators found that the CSA directive was for long-term appointments, not interim ones, and that it was their “inaction and delays that put Smith under pressure”.

CSA’s assertion that Boucher should never have been appointed national coach because he does not have a Level 4 coaching certificate, while Nkwe does, was left standing nude in front of the arbitrators when it was pointed out that CSA were happy to appoint both Gary Kirsten and Ottis Gibson as Proteas head coach when neither of them had a Level 4 qualification.

Cricket South Africa’s board announced on Monday that they will institute an enquiry into the conduct of director of cricket Graeme Smith and Proteas head coach Mark Boucher following the accusations of discrimination made against them by the Social Justice and Nation-Building Report released last week.

An independent legal panel will conduct the enquiry, making it a more formal process than the SJN hearings, during which evidence was not tested and ombudsman Dumisa Ntsebeza admitted that his findings were “tentative” and not definitive.

Even if there is no more than a germ of truth, however, in the SJN allegations, CSA’s statement said “The Board [is] mindful of its duty to treat allegations of racism or discrimination with the utmost seriousness and in a manner that ensures fairness and due process in terms of South Africa’s labour legislation and the Constitution.”

The formal enquiry will also give Smith and Boucher another opportunity to give testimony in person, after both were criticised for only submitting affidavits to Ntsebeza during the SJN process.

Smith has been accused of misusing his position as director of cricket to shepherd “his friend” Boucher into the head coach position without following due process. The former Proteas captain’s lawyer, David Becker, has refuted these allegations, pointing out that the decision was signed off by the board and executive management of CSA.

Ntsebeza’s finding also ignores the fact that Boucher was the most successful coach in domestic franchise cricket at the time of his appointment, and has international playing experience second to none.

Smith’s own appointment was also flagged by Ntsebeza as being irregular, but again this was done with the approval of a Black-majority board as well as the executive management of CSA, according to Becker and the organisation’s own evidence at the SJN hearings.

CSA said the formal enquiries will start “early in the new year” and will include all employees, suppliers or contractors implicated in the SJN report.

Smith and Boucher will continue in their positions until at least the end of the India tour on January 23.

All of which makes it seem like CSA are starting their investigations all over again despite spending R7.5 million on the SJN.

The Social Justice and Nation-Building Report released on Wednesday not only claims the appointments of CSA director of cricket Graeme Smith and Proteas head coach Mark Boucher were irregular but also alludes to “racial discrimination” on their behalves.

Despite these highly-damaging accusations, Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza’s report concludes with admissions that “it cannot make definite findings”, “there was no process in place for testing the submissions” and that his recommendations and findings are “merely tentative”.

Smith’s appointment as Director of Cricket in December 2019 was labelled as “flawed” because South Africa’s most successful captain was headhunted for the position, a common practice in the corporate world. He was initially approached by former CEO Thabang Moroe, who was soon after dismissed by CSA for numerous incidents of maladministration, but still had the gall to criticise Smith’s appointment at the SJN.

The fact that Smith did not want to work under Moroe or former Board president Chris Nenzani, both of whom have left their posts under a cloud, was described as “racial bias against Black management”. The report makes no mention of the fact that Smith has continued to work under Black African Acting CEO Pholetsi Moseki and generic Black board president Lawson Naidoo since then with no issues.

Smith’s subsequent appointment of “his friend” Boucher as head coach was also stated to be an example of “unfair discirimination” based on race, because he was chosen ahead of Enoch Nkwe, who was the interim head coach.

The report lists Boucher’s five franchise trophies in three seasons as coach of the Titans, but then compares them, as equivalents, with two second-tier titles in the Netherlands, a Cubs Week triumph, three amateur cups with the Gauteng Strikers and three franchise titles won by Nkwe. No mention is made of South Africa’s three heavy defeats under Nkwe in India on their previous assignment.

Despite Boucher’s immense international playing experience, it concludes that the record-breaking wicketkeeper/batsman was appointed due to the colour of his skin.

Ex Proteas bowler and KZN Coastal coach Roger Telemachus, who has never led a franchise team, was also ruled to have been discriminated against.

The relatively new board will now have to extricate themselves from a dangerous situation in terms of legal liability, with an initiative set up by the previous board making serious allegations which have already attracted the interest of several affected parties’ lawyers.

Numerous people found to have engaged in racist conduct by the report are believed to have received no notice that they had been implicated, and at least one leading lawyer has sent a 17-page e-mail to the CSA Board warning that the report is seriously flawed in legal terms.

For now, the CSA directors are Out of Office, but they will have to grapple with the SJN issue in the new year.

The second week of the Social Justice and Nation-Building Hearings has taken place at Cricket South Africa’s Melrose offices and, with former players giving evidence this week, it is clear that many feelings of discrimination arose from selection matters.

Selection in cricket is always a controversial and complex matter because of how many variables are involved in the game. It’s a bit like rugby in that you often don’t just choose your 11 or 15 best individual players. It’s about combinations and, in cricket especially, the balance of the team is so crucial.

And that balance has to be fit for purpose for whatever the conditions on the day or the opposition.

Adding to this already delicate mix is the fact that interfering with selection is official CSA policy; as Roger Telemachus testified this week, he had to be pulled from a 2007 World Cup match because there were no Black Africans in the XI.

The fact that it was Makhaya Ntini who was ‘forced’ into the team is interesting. The Mdingi Express was not only a vital beacon for transformation, but also a guaranteed selection for the vast majority of his career simply because of how great a fast bowler he was. But by 2007, especially on the low and slow pitches of the Caribbean, his white-ball form was declining.

Telemachus, a more skilful bowler in terms of slower balls, yorkers and other variations, was probably the better bet at that stage. Shaun Pollock, around about the same time, had to face similar pain as coach Mickey Arthur called time on his Test career because of his declining pace.

These are the sort of cricketing, rather than discriminatory, reasons that should definitely be considered by the SJN commission. As excellent a job as ombudsman Advocate Dumisa Ntsebenza and his two colleagues are doing, I do wish they had been given a cricketing expert to assist them – someone like Geoff Toyana.

The SJN’s shortcomings in this regard were shown when Ntsebeza asked Aaron Phangiso why Imran Tahir didn’t just stand down and give him a chance. Imagine Kagiso Rabada being asked to sit out and give Lutho Sipamla a go?

Phangiso was disgracefully treated in terms of selection in the 2015 World Cup, of that I have no doubt. For him to not play a single match was far more in need of intervention than the ill-fated make-up of the semifinal team. To not even play this quality left-arm spinner, known as ‘The Banker’ by his highly successful Highveld Lions team, against Ireland and the United Arab Emirates was appalling. The latter game was played on the isle of New Zealand, where the UAE were never going to stretch the Proteas. If South Africa felt Phangiso’s inclusion was somehow going to risk defeat, he should never have been in the World Cup squad in the first place.

But was this discrimination? The coach at the time – Russell Domingo – is Black, and so is the then-CEO, Haroon Lorgat, who had oversight over selection, with a majority Black board breathing down his neck.

I get the feeling from the many comments I have seen about former players ‘deserving’ better or ‘why weren’t they given more opportunity’, that many people don’t understand the nature of high-performance sport. Its about the best taking on the best. Of course in this country, with its history of oppression, there are mechanisms required to level the playing fields.

But no-one is entitled to be chosen, high performance sport is not about giving everyone a chance. It was also my dream to play first-class cricket, but I wasn’t good enough, end of story.

To see a former player with a batting average of 19.24 and strike-rate of 51 after 72 innings across the formats pose as a victim of a lack of opportunity is sad. He also said CSA is full of white bosses, which is totally at odds with the actual situation in a boardroom that has been majority Black for a long time.

I fully support Ntsebeza in this vital initiative to try and fix our cricket. But he is going to need the Wisdom of Solomon and some real cricket experts to do that.