Stop putting all cricket officials in one box
It’s been another tumultuous week in South African cricket and I mentioned to one of the top South African coaches that being online this week had felt like facing the great West Indies fast bowling attack of the 70s and 80s without a helmet!
I have long said that South Africa is probably the angriest country in the world, which is not that surprising given we are one of the most unequal. Everyone feels betrayed, everyone feels like promises have been broken and too many people are just looking out for their own self-interest.
Which is why I fully support the Black Lives Matter movement and I was delighted yesterday to see the public statements of support for that anti-racism initiative from White cricketers like Rassie van der Dussen, Dwaine Pretorius, Marizanne Kapp and Faf du Plessis. Apart from those individual endorsements, I look forward to seeing what the Proteas as a unit do to show their support of BLM at the Solidarity
Cup 3TCricket match in Centurion today.
However, just like the farm murders narrative pushed by the ignorant likes of Rudolf Steyn, Boeta Dippenaar, Pat Symcox and Brian McMillan has been hijacked by white supremacists and Nazi sympathisers, so too there is a small proportion of BLM advocates who have agendas that are not so noble.
My online wars this last week have centred around my belief that allegations that Cricket South Africa acting CEO Jacques Faul, director of cricket Graeme Smith and head coach Mark Boucher are complicit in the racism that has undoubtedly occurred in the past, are perhaps unfair.
The attacks on these three men are certainly part of the agenda to ensure the return to power of those responsible for #CricketCapture. Faul is totally committed to transformation and I have seen first-hand how he has improved and advanced the lives
Ken Borland
of black people working under him; Smith was the driving force behind making the Proteas fully embrace their diversity and becoming more inclusive while he was captain; Boucher is certainly a hard taskmaster but no racist.
The people delivering the most bouncers in the last week could be described as a motley crew – matchfixers, players whose contracts were ended by serious injuries, the only franchise coach to refuse to pick three black African players, and a national selector who has posted factually incorrect allegations of players being dropped and coveted the position of convenor to such an extent that he has not been afraid to badmouth the black African incumbent, Linda Zondi.
Perhaps the most ludicrous moment came when a former player, currently serving a 10year ban for matchfixing, accused me of being one of those “brown envelope journalists”!
Faul, Smith and Boucher have been accused of running South African cricket as a white clique. But Faul was appointed by a CSA Board that is 83% Black and Smith was initially headhunted by former CEO Thabang Moroe.
There have been allegations of nepotism and a lack of due process being followed in the appointment of Boucher. Some of those critics partly owe their own positions in South African cricket to their friendships with leading administrators, and doubts about Boucher’s qualifications are absurd – he played 147 Tests and 290 ODIs and was the most successful franchise coach with five trophies in three seasons.
It has to be a good thing, however, that everywhere one looks on social media these days one can click on testimonies from former black players of how poorly they were treated by the system. These stories should not be ignored, but the racism, whether conscious, unconscious, structural or institutional, cannot be pinned on those currently managing cricket.
Hopefully as South African cricket moves on from this torrid week, there will be better communication between those in authority and those who feel marginalised; hopefully all black cricketers can rely on those who are in charge of the game to look after their interests.
Cricket South Africa have certainly invested in transformation – spending nearly R385 million on it in the 2019/20 financial year alone; 52 of their 64 full-time employees are black people and 92% of nationally accredited coaches in South Africa are black. The focus should be on ensuring these efforts bear fruit in terms of a Proteas team that truly reflects the demographics of the game.