Telford Vice on why THAT interview should have been aired
● Let’s put three of the whitest white players in the history of whitehood on screen together and have them interviewed by an even whiter player.
It’ll be perfectly fine, as long as no one mentions the unbearable whiteness of all that being beamed to an audience in a country that is 91.14% black and 100% unequal in every sense that matters.
They’ll talk about the cricket, the whole cricket and nothing but the cricket. That means they won’t talk about the real world they came from that put them on pedestals from which they peer still. They deserve to — they were part of the best team in the game, even though they didn’t play against half the other teams in the game. Because those teams were, you know, black.
They won’t talk about how much they didn’t do to use the privilege they were born into and the position that happy accident helped them attain to fight for a fairer world, and certainly not about how they have no concept of the fact that as long as one of us isn’t free, then none of us is free.
Besides, they did their bit when they walked off at Newlands in 1971. They even went to the trouble of writing a statement, which was read out: “We fully support the South African Cricket Association’s application to invite non-whites to tour Australia, if they are good enough; and further subscribe to merit being the only criterion on the cricket field.” Because they know all about being good enough. And about merit. And about how to deploy a semi-colon.
It took a few minutes, and then they went back to what they had always done and would do for years afterwards: play cricket as if their abnormal society was normal. As long as they were able to do that, wherever they wanted to, all was right with the world.
Not a lot has changed. As long as they have the right to talk cricket — only cricket, and only on their terms — everything will be all right. How could anyone possibly object . . .
You have to wonder when the lightbulb went on at SuperSport and it was realised that having Mark Nicholas interview Barry Richards, Graeme Pollock and Mike Procter during lunch on the second day of the third Test against Pakistan at the Wanderers was a dumb idea.
Who turned on the lightbulb? Not Cricket SA (CSA), apparently, who said: “All breaks belong to the broadcaster including decisions on what to show during those breaks. There has never been any interference from our side and definitely not on this one.”
Besides, anyone who thinks CSA and SuperSport are on cosy terms in the wake of their messy divergence about the rights for what became, by hook or by crook, the Mzansi Super League, probably also thinks the team that called itself “South Africa” in
They should have been up there, in living whiteness. And asked everything
1970 was the best in the world.
Who’s idea was the interview? Nicholas’, apparently, who it seems floated it with the three proposed subjects before he spoke to SuperSport’s production staff, who favoured a recorded insert — which was canned after Richards vented on social media.
SuperSport are excellent at putting sport on television. But, as with all rights holders, journalism is bad for their business.
Thus an opportunity was missed. Richards is as sharp, articulate and willing to engage as he is strident. Procter proved his downto-earth open-mindedness when he was a selector. Pollock is out of touch these days, but he’s still Pollock.
Their voices are valuable and they should be part of the conversation. They should have been put up there, live and in living whiteness. And asked about everything.