Ken Borland

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.

One will not often find a young head coach who would not feel threatened by bringing in assistants who are more experienced or better-known than himself, but it speaks volumes for the confidence and character of Central Gauteng Lions mentor Wandile Gwavu that he has fully embraced having JP Duminy and Piet Botha as his batting and bowling coaches.

Duminy played 46 Tests, 199 ODIs and 81 T20s for South Africa, so he has a wealth of knowledge to offer the Lions batsmen, while Botha is vastly experienced in his own right as a coach and is highly-rated when it comes to helping the bowlers. Gwavu said it is not just the players who will be learning from his assistants.

“It’s a superstar coaching staff with JP, Piet and Prasanna Agoram as our analyst. It’s not only going to be great for the players but also for the growth of the head coach, I’m keen to take the learnings on and it will make me better as well. I know I lack international playing experience and the way JP speaks about cricket, I know we totally share the same philosophies.

“I’ve played under Piet Botha, we have a very strong relationship and I rate him as one of the best bowling coaches around. He’s very good with youngsters and Sisanda Magala, Lutho Sipamla and Anrich Nortje have all come through under his watch. And Prasanna is one of the best, if not the best, analysts, so we have world-class people in our camp,” the 34-year-old Gwavu said on Tuesday.

That the Lions have secured the services of Duminy, one of the Western Cape’s favourite sons, is due to the initiative of CEO Jono Leaf-Wright. The team will certainly benefit from one of the deepest thinkers in the game.

“It was an opportunity I didn’t really think of until I had a conversation with Jono during an ODI I was commentating on against Pakistan here. And then when I heard him speak at a coach’s forum I knew I was in,  you can just sense the trust and integrity. I certainly believe I can contribute. It’s mostly about having conversations about game-plans and driving certain mindsets.

“It’s about talking through their processes with the players, but it’s also about the coaches in Gauteng and telling them what happens at the top level. I don’t have all the answers, but hopefully I can ask good questions and it’s about empowering, encouraging and uplifting the batsmen. It all starts with mindset and trying to throw the first punch. It will be a learning experience for me too,” Duminy said at the Wanderers on Tuesday.

The way Springboks director of rugby Rassie Erasmus described his waterboy duties on Tuesday one would almost expect Jacques Nienaber to be paying him pocket money, but with the head coach sitting next to him and smiling broadly at the time, there is clearly no issue when it comes to division of labour.

This week former England and British and Irish Lions coach Sir Clive Woodward, in his column for the Daily Mail – of course – said Erasmus should “butt out” because he is “taking over again” and the “confusion at the top and a lack of demarcation between the roles of director of rugby … and … national team coach … is killing the Springboks”.

“I’m not sure Clive Woodward is so important in South Africa, but Jacques and I are great mates, we’ve worked a lot together since our days in the military back in 1990. I’m the water-carrier now, so he’s got a higher rank than me now, that makes him my boss at the moment. If we had scored that try in the 71^st minute then people would say the relationship is working perfectly.

“Jacques’ job is the coaching, my job is to get the structure right, make sure we are given a fair chance, get through the Covid protocols and make sure players are available. I also need to inform people what is going on. And I help with the coaching plan and I carry water. The important thing is that all the players are now back on the park and training every day this week,” Erasmus said.

Speaking of ‘a fair chance’, Erasmus said he was deeply concerned by the pressure Lions coach Warren Gatland put on TMO Marius Jonker last week, somehow implying that because he is South African he would favour the Springboks. Predictably, the opposite was true, with flank Hamish Watson escaping a yellow card for a tip-tackle and the hosts having a second try disallowed on what many considered a 50/50 call.

“We were very focused last week and just trying to bring back the positive vibe from the World Cup, so we didn’t say too much. The Lions were a bit the opposite. Warren Gatland, who is a great guy, spoke a lot about Marius Jonker and him being South African. Which is weird because we would never say anything this week about the referee [Ben O’Keeffe] coming from New Zealand and Warren also being a New Zealander.

“It’s a difficult one because Marius and I are close friends and when he was appointed, I made a point of not phoning him before the match because it was such a tough time for him. To point out that he is South African does not sit well with me. When New Zealand and Australia played each other in the Rugby Championship last year, they had referees from the host country, that’s the way it is with Covid,” Erasmus pointed out.