Ken Borland

Cricket South Africa sadly faces suspension by the Minister of Sport after Nathi Mthethwa rejected the Members Council’s plea for a seven-day extension to sort out their impasse with the Interim Board over the introduction of a majority independent board and independent chairperson.

Having given the Members Council until 5pm on Tuesday to show cause as to why he should not take action against them following their weekend failure to approve the Interim Board’s governance proposals, Mthethwa informed the provincial presidents on Tuesday night that he considered their response “to fall short of addressing the subject of showing cause why I should not apply the provisions of Section 13 (5) of the Sports Act based on your failure to implement a critical aspect of the mandate I gave the Interim Board”, according to a letter which The Citizen has seen.

The Sports Act allows for Mthethwa to withdraw government recognition of CSA, which would prevent them from participating in international cricket, thus surely leading to their suspension from the International Cricket Council and dooming the local game to amateur status.

There is clearly a massive gorge in opinion between what most observers believe are the minister’s powers and what the Members Council are banking on, because Mthethwa mentions “a lack of alignment with my interpretation of the powers provided to me by the Sports Act”.

Mthethwa points out that in his meeting with the Members Council and the Interim Board 10 days ago, there was agreement on the desirability of a majority independent board. He also mentions a letter the Members Council sent to the Interim Board saying the only remaining item for discussion was the definition of non-independent directors.

“Your proposal to convene a multi-party stakeholder conference to deal with a matter that you have been seized with for a number of months does not make sense to me. … I do not understand what would be achieved by a further seven-day extension when you were part of a conference that announced a roadmap that targeted April 17 as a completion date,” Mthethwa said.

The gorgeous irony is that several provinces are now rallying behind the lead of Gauteng and North-West, who called on the Members Council to approve the new constitution. But it is too little, too late.

Boeta Dippenaar and Pat Symcox are two former cricketers I have admired and whose company I have enjoyed from time to time, but I hope their faces are as red as tomatoes after their ill-judged reactions to Lungi Ngidi’s comments that the Proteas need to make a stand against racial discrimination.

For the record, Ngidi was asked a direct question about the Black Lives Matter movement and whether the Proteas team would seek to support it as the West Indies and England sides have done in their return to action in the Southampton Test.

Ngidi said: “It’s definitely something we need to discuss in person but we are all well aware of what is going on. It’s something we have to address as a team, as a nation as well because we’ve had racial discrimination in the past. It’s something we need to take very seriously, we need to make a stand like the rest of the world.”

Now saying a stand should be made against racial discrimination is surely not something so divisive that the Proteas would be halved into different camps for and against? Surely Ngidi was standing for something everybody can support, like being against gender-based violence?

So why the furious reaction?

It was another former Protea, top-order batsman Rudolf Steyn, who fired the first shot with a social media post that read: “I believe the Proteas should make a stand against racism, but if they stand up for ‘black lives matter’ while ignoring the way white farmers are daily being ‘slaughtered’ like animals, they have lost my vote.”

Firstly, it has to be in very poor taste to start bartering over whether you will support someone else’s right to life depending on them supporting your cause. Yes, All Lives do Matter, but in the world as a whole, the priority has to be to ensure that the importance of Black Lives are upgraded so that we no longer see the shocking, senseless deaths of people like George Floyd and Collins Khosa.

If someone told you that their father had died of a heart attack, would you say “what about all the people who have died of cancer”? If someone asked you to support research into eliminating breast cancer, would you say “only if you support anti-HIV initiatives”?

By responding to a question about Black Lives Matter, it by no means suggests Ngidi is against any other lives mattering. In fact, a furious response to Black Lives Matter suggests an attitude that they don’t matter as much as other lives.

Both Symcox and Dippenaar then replied highlighting the plight of farmers and farm attacks. Also a worthy cause.

Many critics of Black Lives Matter say it has become politicised but this is also true, perhaps even more so, of Farm Attacks. According to AfriForum’s own figures, there were 57 farm murders in 2019 and, while every one of those deaths is a tragic injustice, to somehow extrapolate that into an organised campaign of racial genocide is ridiculous. In fact, 57 murders a year is quite close to the daily figure for all murders in our terribly violent country. The Transvaalse Landbou Unie released a statement this week saying there had been 26 farm murders so far this year.

Or do some lives take priority over others? Which I guess is exactly the point of Black Lives Matter. As West Indian great Michael Holding put it this week, we all know White Lives Matter, that has never been in doubt.

Cricket in general has often been halfhearted in responding to issues of social justice so the efforts of the English and West Indian teams, and even the ICC match officials, have been tremendous to see.

I was also impressed with how Cricket South Africa’s relatively new director of cricket, Graeme Smith, handled the grenade when it was tossed to him at the same press conference as Ngidi’s. He was a huge driver of diversity and inclusivity when he was a Proteas captain, but he has not been a ‘suit’ for that long and has had a couple of mishaps already when it comes to dealing with political issues.

Smith said: “We are all very aware of what is going on around the world and our role as CSA. When the team gets together again we will figure out how to play an effective role in the Black Lives Matter movement. It’s important to have buy-in and for everyone to be invested. I have no doubt that will be the case, but to have the discussion is important. There certainly needs to be something done and we will discuss various ways of handling it in an effective and authentic manner.”

And the Titans, who have won more domestic cups than any other franchise, have also led the way in responding to the cause. The squad unanimously agreed that coach Mandla Mashimbyi should issue the following statement:

“We know only too well how important the Black Lives Matter movement is. We bat vehemently against discrimination of any kind, and we will always strive to provide opportunities within our Titans family for all the colours and cultures of our rainbow nation. We also want to lend our voice to those shouting for the scourge of violence against our mothers, sisters and daughters to stop.

“The only way we can stand against evil is by showing acts of love to people no matter their race, religion or gender. We should see love as the foundation that helps us find solutions, find refuge and hope because love is the foundation of life. If we can begin to view things through the perspective of love before race, religion or gender we will move forward as a society,” Mashimbyi said.

Top South African golfer Justin Harding says he faces a predicament in arranging his schedule once professional golf resumes because he plays in both Europe and the United States and has to juggle their mussed up schedules with the quarantine and travel regulations of the various countries hosting events.

It is a problem facing many golfers as the U.S. PGA Tour hopes to resurrect their schedule on June 11 with the Charles Schwab Challenge at Colonial and the European Tour is supposedly going to start again at the end of July with a run of events in the United Kingdom. But many of the world’s top golfers hop between the European and American tours, which now becomes a logistical nightmare with all the quarantining and testing that will be required for international travel.

“The European Tour is going to try put on four or five weeks of action in the UK, and hopefully there will be reduced quarantine measures by the end of that otherwise it’s going to be a scheduling nightmare. If you want to play in America you have to go 14 days beforehand, and going to Europe you also need 14 days’ quarantine. The PGA Championship is scheduled for the second week of August, so if you play in the British Masters from July 23 then you miss the quarantine deadline.

“The Korn Ferry Tour [the secondary U.S. tour for which Harding has full status] sent out a 57-page memorandum on the different regulations for when they start on June 8, but I have no intention of playing a full schedule on that tour. I need the world ranking points from the European Tour, and it doesn’t make sense quarantining for six weeks just to play three tournaments,” Harding said in a recent Sunshine Tour virtual press conference.

And before one accuses the 34-year-old world number 111 of being lazy, it is a viewpoint shared by many other golfers and Harding has proven his credentials by playing all over the world in recent years. One trip to the United States that he is willing to make, however, is for the Masters, which has been rescheduled for November 12-15. Harding made an impressive debut at the Masters last year, finishing in a tie for 12^th just five shots behind winner Tiger Woods, earning himself an invitation for this year’s Major.

“I’m certainly happy that the Masters wasn’t cancelled like the Open Championship! I’m dying to go back again and I wasn’t in a great run of form when we stopped playing golf but hopefully I can go to Augusta in November and be competitive. It’s a very strategic course and you need to put the ball in the right places. But I have no idea what the course will be like at that time of year.

“I’m sure Augusta will look different, I think it will be quite firm after it was quite wet last year. It will also be the debuts of Erik van Rensburg and Christiaan Bezuidenhout there so that’s going to be good fun. I think they’re the most upset about golf being suspended because they were both flying! Whereas I had had a dip in form which I was trying to play through, so the 10-week break might be good for me,” Harding said.

This has been a season of renewal for the Bulls and one of the fresh faces to have really come to the fore in SuperRugby has been loose forward Marco van Staden, a man of frenetic energy, great physicality and no little skill in doing his ball-pilfering job at the rucks.

A couple of the writers who regularly cover the Bulls were fortunate enough to get to interview the 22-year-old recently and he revealed that he played no provincial schoolboy rugby. This is probably largely due to the fact that he went to Hoerskool Bekker in Magaliesburg, not one of the traditional rugby powers.

He has made it this far – now being rated as one of South Africa’s most promising young forwards – thanks to his single-minded determination to fulfil his dream of being a professional rugby player and a bursary to study sports science from the University of Pretoria. Van Staden graduated last month and is the exception to the rule when it comes to how rugby players move through the development pipeline.

This got me thinking about the numerous, who knows how many, talents that fall through the cracks in South African rugby because of our obsession with a handful of elite rugby schools and provincial U19 and U21 competitions and the Varsity Cup.

Our results whenever we get to play against other countries – whether in the Pro14, SuperRugby or at Springbok level – show that our rugby is not well. The main reason for that is the terrible structure of our game. We desperately need a system that includes as much as possible of the undeniable talent that comes flooding through every year.

Instead, our rugby is elitist and there are barriers everywhere. It starts at school level where a few elite schools just get richer and richer through the ridiculous amount of attention that is lavished on them. Just turn on the rugby channel and you are very likely to be watching a schoolboy game.

These youngsters are fawned over from a young age and if you didn’t go to the ‘right’ school then chances are you won’t be playing in Craven Week, which means you won’t get snapped up by a province or university; in other words you are out of the system, generally for good.

Having been taught win-at-all-costs rugby at school level, to the detriment of skills development, these cloistered kids become professional rugby players at the age of 19, big fish in a small pond just going to another small pond. Many of them play in a Varsity Cup that shares little resemblance to the sort of rugby they will need to play if they are going to make it with the Springboks.

That rugby is being jealousy guarded as the preserve of a few was rammed home by two recent incidents.

Wanderers U21 players laid a complaint of vicious racism and assault against Roodepoort, with the disciplinary hearing held on May 9 by the Golden Lions Rugby Union. Seven weeks later and this issue has still not been resolved.

If South African rugby wants their sport to be played and enjoyed by most people in this country then incidents like this cannot be tolerated. If a blind eye is turned to what happens at club level, SA Rugby are discarding the probable solution to their structural crisis. By growing a healthy club rugby culture between the junior and professional ranks, there will be a pipeline that provides opportunity for way more talent.

But this lack of inclusivity is even seen at school level. Hilton College and Paul Roos (still sponsored by a Steinhoff subsidiary) fielded lilywhite teams in their Premier Interschools matches against Maritzburg College and Grey High respectively. Encouraged by blanket television coverage, they are allowed to get away with this gross dereliction of duty.

Both those schools spend a fortune on recruitment, so it is obvious making sure their teams reflect the demographics of our country by obtaining Black talent does not even register on their radar. And these are the schools which are meant to be preparing our children for a future South Africa!