Successful Proteas are now a transformed team

They mean business – black, white, brown or florescent green

WHEN the Proteas took the field at Headingley, England yesterday, memories of the all-white side who played a Test there in 1994 would have felt like a distant world.

Eight of South Africa’s 15-man squad for the one-day international series against England and the Champions Trophy are either black, Asian or “coloured”.

And if you hear anyone cry “tokenism”, tell them to get a grip. The Proteas have won their last seven bilateral ODI series, and are ranked No 1 in the world rankings.

They are a team who mean business – black, white, brown or fluorescent green.

Happily, they have reached the top with a team far more representative of the Rainbow Nation’s demographics than the one led by Kepler Wessels 23 years ago on South Africa’s first post-isolation tour of the UK.

Back then, the only member of colour in the touring party was former assistant manager Goolam Rajah.

Today, fast-bowling starlet Kagiso Rabada and promising 21-year-old all-rounder Andile Phehlukwayo are some of the black African players who are crucial members of the team. Yet, 80% of the population is black, so work clearly remains.

According to Cricket SA’s chief executive Haroon Lorgat, what has always been fundamental to transformation is a “bottom up” approach.

“Following the organisation’s AGM last September, CSA a n n o u n c e d new stipulations for transformation for the national team, with a minimum 54% of playing opportunities for all black players and 18% for black African players. Those numbers were to be measured over the course of the season across all three formats,” Lorgat said.

Players of Asian heritage and so-called coloured cricketers – who between them account for 11% of the population – will have a higher profile during ODI matches than their black counterparts.

Pakistan-born leg-spinner Imran Tahir is miles ahead at the top of the ODI bowling rankings, while Hashim Amla, who has Indian forebears, is among the game’s greatest batsmen.

Left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj recently helped win a Test series in New Zealand, while JP Duminy is a standard-bearer for the multi-racial community in the Western Cape.

S i n c e whites make up less than 9% of South Africa’s population, the seven white cricketers in the Proteas squad can only be understood in terms of the country’s apartheid past.

It is a past which the government has been keen to erase. Last year, then-sports minister Fikile Mbalula showed his impatience with the rate of change in major sporting teams, insisting he would no longer “beg for transformation”.

Mbalula dealt a blow to Athletics SA, SA Rugby, Cricket SA and Netball SA last year, announcing that the four sporting bodies’s rights to host international tournaments would be withdrawn after failing to reach their transformation targets.

However, at the recent release of the Eminent Persons Group report on transformation in South African sport, new Minister of Sports and Recreation Thulas Nxesi lifted the ban on the federations controlling cricket, rugby, netball and athletics from bidding for international events to be hosted in this country.

“They have achieved their 50%, which is what the department wanted from them and based on that criteria... we can’t shift the goalposts,” said Nxesi. “The actions by my predecessor acted as an incentive for those federations.”

Cricket SA, however, deny that it expanded its quota system in response to political pressure, but there is no doubting its desire to field a team more in keeping with the racial make-up of the nation.

The refreshing truth is that it should make no difference at all to the Proteas’s chances over the coming weeks. – Daily Mail

Yet, 80% of the population is black, so work clearly remains