Ken Borland

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.

The first week of the Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings have been a mere aperitif for what I sense many people are hoping are more sensational revelations from next week when former players start appearing before Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, the ombudsman appointed by Cricket South Africa.

But in many ways, this week’s “scene-setters”, as Ntsebeza has called them, have provided vital testimony because they have given a factual account of the transformation policies of CSA and how they have changed through the years. There have been successes, but there have been failures as well and surely no-one can question that the national team is not as transformed as it should be nearly 30 years after Unity.

The SJN commission did not have a promising start though. The first witness was Dr Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, which was fair enough because the SJN was largely her idea. But the former CSA independent director produced a couple of hours of largely incoherent testimony riddled with factual errors. As a former Board member, how does she not know that the players’ association (SACA) don’t pay the players’ salaries?!

She then thought it would be appropriate to give Ntsebeza a cricket bat, signed by her, to commemorate the occasion. The ombudsman looked bemused and it was telling that he never mentioned Kula-Ameyaw’s presentation again during the week.

It was onwards and upwards from there though as Advocate Norman Arendse, former CSA president and current independent director, and Max Jordaan, CSA’s head of transformation, spoke of the steps taken to ensure equal opportunities for all before cricket was captured and the likes of Kula-Ameyaw took the reins.

Mary-Anne Dove, a doctor of sports and exercise science whose thesis was on the role of socio-ecological factors in talent development in sport, gave insights into how targets or quotas have to be accompanied by development and other interventions, and Zola Thamae, a former Board member and manager of the Proteas women’s team, gave shocking evidence of how the women’s national team was treated a decade ago.

Professor Richard Calland, an expert on sustainable governance and organisational culture, gave an interesting presentation too.

It is clear that CSA have made a meal of transformation, but it does not matter how many Black player quotas or targets they have, the failure of the Proteas to be truly representative of the country is firstly down to socio-economic issues.

Jordaan, who has been at CSA for 20 years, apart from the disingenuous comment that “nobody is missing out on selection because we are juggling numbers”, made the salient points that when the Proteas won the ICC mace for being top of the Test pile, targets were in place, and that transformation has to start at the many non-former-Model C and private schools and at clubs, but CSA runs into difficulties when they try and improve facilities in these areas due to recalcitrant city councils and the lack of support from the department of education.

Jordaan gave the example of a cricket facility in Welkom being taken over by the local council, who built a casino instead on the land, and buildings in townships “disappearing brick-by-brick”.

Instead of just congratulating themselves for having ticked the box of having a certain number of Black players in the Proteas and domestic teams (which is not a valid measure of transformation success because teams are forced to meet the racial targets), cricket needs to firstly make sure the pipeline at grassroots is working.

I believe CSA have actually done okay in this regard and have worked very hard to keep the pipeline flowing. But there is no doubt Black players still predominantly come from the former Model C and private schools – a much smaller pool.

This is due to structural, systemic problems that only national and local government can fix, especially with the currently constrained financial resources of CSA.

The frustration of Black African cricketers was evident in the presentations of Johannesburg coach David Mashiyi and former player Zonde Mbekeni.

The fact that Mbekeni feels as frustrated and angry about the lack of opportunities for Black Africans as he did in his playing days back in the 1970s is not okay.

But in many ways it boils down to a struggle for scant resources and opportunities.

There was arguably more relief for Quinton de Kock’s many supporters than for the batsman himself after his superb unbeaten century on the second day of the first Test against the West Indies at St Lucia on Friday, but there is no denying the last year has been very tough for the Proteas wicketkeeper/batsman.

For one of the more instinctive, laid-back talents in South African cricket, a person whose off-field pursuits are largely geared around the great outdoors, bio-bubbles are not easy for De Kock and over and above that he also had to deal with the captaincy of a struggling side. Having taken a break in the latter half of the summer and now relieved of the captaincy, De Kock blossomed on Friday with a brilliantly judged innings of 141 not out that put the Proteas in firm control of the first Test with a massive first-innings lead of 225.

“It didn’t really have anything to do with the captaincy,” De Kock said of his recent struggles, “it’s just the Covid bubbles. We’ve had so many and they just took their toll. It was too much and I just needed a break. Cricket South Africa deemed it a mental break, but I wasn’t tired of cricket, I was tired of the bubbles.

“I went from the IPL into the Pakistan bubble and that was particularly difficult, just going from the ground to one floor of the hotel and our rooms that had no balconies. Previously I wasn’t able to capitalise on my starts in Test cricket and then in the last while I haven’t even been getting starts, so it was nice to get the hundred today,” De Kock explained after his career-best Test innings.

De Kock has always been one of the classiest strokeplayers in the game, but on Friday he showed the appreciation of the game situation and the ability to adapt to it that is a mark of all the top batsmen. After a rapid start that saw him race to 22 off 24 balls, a much better second hour by the West Indian bowlers on a pitch that was still offering plenty of assistance to the quicks, saw De Kock adopt a much more cautious approach and he went to lunch on 44 off 88 deliveries.

The left-hander shared a couple of very useful partnerships with Rassie van der Dussen and Wiaan Mulder, but a fightback by the home side saw the Proteas slip to 233 for eight. But batting with the tail is a skill that De Kock has mastered, despite all the people who want him batting higher up the order, and he showed a cool, razor-sharp mind as he added 79 for the ninth wicket with Anrich Nortje, who scored just seven of those runs.

“It was a nice start to the day and then the bowlers brought it back really well. I understood the situation though and there was a lot in the pitch. We just needed to soak up the pressure for as long as we could and then capitalise. Credit also to the other guys who chipped in. It was a difficult pitch, even though it was not as up-and-down as it was with the new ball in the second innings.

“Even after 75 overs the ball was swinging a lot, but you’ve just go to find a way of dealing with it. There was obviously still a lot in that pitch on the second day, but it was a fair contest because if you worked hard as a batsman you could get runs and the bowlers always had a chance too,” De Kock said.

The city of Pretoria was in shock on Saturday night as three Bulls players who many considered to be dead-certainties for the Springbok squad to take on the British and Irish Lions were omitted from the 46 players announced by SA Rugby.

Inside centre Cornal Hendricks and loosehead prop Lizo Gqoboka have both been instrumental in the Bulls’ rise to dominance in domestic rugby, while Marcell Coetzee, after five dazzling years with Ulster, made a much-hyped return to local rugby in the match against the Stormers. And he certainly lived up to expectations with a bulldozing display that made up for Duane Vermeulen leaving the field injured.

Hendricks’ omission is the most interesting, with director of rugby Rassie Erasmus admitting the inspirational 33-year-old would have been chosen were it not for the continued doubts the SA Rugby medical staff have over his heart condition, which led them to cancel his national contract at the end of 2015. This is despite Hendricks enjoying two thoroughly healthy and productive years at the Bulls.

“The form Cornal is in, everyone can see that there must be some other reason for not choosing him. We have been scratching our heads over him and his medical condition and he is still very much in consideration. But it’s not up to myself or Jacques Nienaber [coach] to take a medical decision, he must be cleared first by our medical team.

“We spoke nicely with him a couple of weeks ago. The moment we get the green light then we can pick him, but we have to wait for the official word. Neil Powell is waiting too because he wants to take him to the Olympics with the Springbok Sevens,” Erasmus said.

The 46-man Springbok squad is a bit light at inside centre, with Damian de Allende and Francois Steyn the only players who have been regularly wearing the No.12 jersey.

Erasmus said Coetzee was certainly in contention for the squad but they were concerned that he had not played since March due to injury. But locks Lood de Jager and RG Snyman are both still injured and have not played for just as long but are in the squad.

De Jager fractured his femur in early April and Snyman has not played since August 2020 after rupturing his ACL and then picking up an unrelated knee injury last month.

“The difference is Lood and RG have won the World Cup and the Rugby Championship, they have played 20 Tests with us and we know them. We know how to get them fit and we’ll know if they’re sharp,” Erasmus said.

Gqoboka has become one of the darlings of Pretoria with his strong scrummaging and powerful ball-carrying, but Coenie Oosthuizen, who last played for the Springboks so long ago he might need a visa, and Ox Nche have leapfrogged him into the Springbok squad.

Springbok coach Jacques Nienaber admitted Gqoboka was unfortunate, but pointed to him arriving at an alignment camp last week with his foot encased in a moon-boot. Bulls coach Jake White had said earlier in the week though that Gqoboka should be okay to play next week.