Off-the-field shenanigans cast a pall over cricket in KwaZulu-Natal

I’M NOT looking forward to this season. Nothing to do with the cricket itself, which – win or lose – is always a pleasure, but rather what’s happening off the field.

How to explain? One way is to note that the Durban launch of the wonderful book on the non-racial Aurora Cricket Club, written by Chris Nicholson and Mike Hickson, takes place at Kingsmead on Thursday evening.

I wish the book well, of course, but the ideals that Aurora stood for during those dramatic days in the 1980s are under threat now.

After fighting the good fight to establish the principle and reality of non-racial sport in apartheid South Africa, Aurora folded as a club in 2004.

It was decided that the funds accumulated under the careful stewardship of the club’s president, Roy Bunwarie, and Christopher Merrett, should be given to the KwaZulu-Natal Inland Cricket Union (KZNICU).

There’s a picture on page 194 in the book of Bunwarie and Merrett handing over a cheque worth R72 500 to Yunus Bhamjee, then the president of the KZNICU.

The last we hear of the Aurora Trust Fund money is that it was to be used to promote some kind of cricket development in the region.

Eleven years later, the union is no more. Millions in debt, most of it to the taxman, there is apparently no record of how the Aurora funds were spent.

Nicholson and Hickson said the club’s funds were “modest but honestly cared for as befitted a club whose honour was beyond reproach”.

Letters were written to the KZNICU concerning how the trust money was used, but no answers have yet been forthcoming. What are we to think?

It is, at the very least, an unsatisfactory state of affairs.

I attended last Sunday’s first game at the Oval since CSA took away the union’s Associate Member status after evidence of theft and misgovernance were revealed. Despite last-minute attempts to give the ground a brush and clean, plenty remains to be done before the old lady can regain her former glory.

I am told there is still a possibility, unless significant further improvements are made, that England’s fixture there in the build-up to the Boxing Day Test may be taken away.

Nor is the malaise restricted to Inland.

The mother body, the KZN Cricket Union, has had major governance problems, not to mention internal ructions, for well more than a decade now. In 2003 the Trikamjee Commission investigated the many financial irregularities, as well as structural and constitutional problems that afflicted the union, including the illegal purchase of a racehorse with union funds.

The report was published and little was done.

Now there is a new wave of problems, including evidence of Indian “fronting” of black Africans at the highest level.

Ernest Molotsi, the previous vice-president of the KZNCU for six years, and the vice-president of the Durban and District Cricket Union, was not elected president of DDCU at the elections this year. Instead, Yunus Bobat, the previous second vice-president of the union, was elected president of DDCU.

Rajesh Sookhay, the previous president of DDCU, has been elected vice-president of KZNCU, on the understanding – so it is strongly rumoured – that he is to be groomed for president, once the existing president’s term expires.

Meanwhile, Ben Dladla, who has been a vice-president since 2013 and was re-elected this year (and, as such, should be considered the senior vicepresident), has not been consulted on this matter.

The union’s five independent directors were appointed three months ago, supposedly to ensure good governance following the publication of the Nicholson Report (the same author who co-wrote the Aurora book), yet no Manco meeting has been called by the president, and the directors remain in the dark.

It is understood that Sascoc’s chief executive, Tubby Reddy, is aware of the union’s problems and may be persuaded to take action.

Meanwhile, a dispute has been called by the Dawnheights Club to protest against the allegedly unconstitutional decision of the president, Faeez Jaffar, to wipe the slate clean and extend his tenure beyond the six years guaranteed by the constitution. That dispute has been rejected on technical grounds, but perhaps the storm is coming.