Why continued inequality makes it difficult for South Africa to produce black Test batsmen

A lack of facilities and role models is hurting player development, writes Tim Wigmore in Cape Town

Siya Kolisi was at Newlands yesterday. At lunchtime, he joined Graeme Smith on the outfield, basking in acclaim for lifting the Rugby World Cup two months ago. Newlands Cricket Ground has witnessed seminal sporting moments of its own. One of the most famous of these was in the Test against England four years ago, when Temba Bavuma scored the first ever century by a black African for South Africa in Test cricket. This was not merely a brilliant

Test hundred, it also seemed to be a symbol of what could be achieved in South Africa.

“When I made my debut I came to be aware of the significance; it was not just me making my debut but also being a model for black African kids,” Bavuma said after his undefeated 102. “In achieving this milestone, it will strengthen that example.”

Four years on, Bavuma’s remains the only Test century scored by a black African batsman. As Kolisi was lauded at Cape Town, Bavuma was digesting being dropped from South Africa’s Test side, which now features only one black African, Kagiso Rabada, and has missed the transformation targets: six players classed as coloured, including two black Africans; for the second consecutive Test. A couple of hours before Kolisi took to the field, Cricket South Africa was moved to issue a press release reiterating its commitment to transformation.

“This is something that goes far beyond the game of cricket,” Cricket South Africa’s president, Chris Nenzani, commented in the press release. It was, of course, a statement of the obvious. Just as transformation is intertwined with wider South African society, so are the reasons for the paucity of black African batsmen being produced. “Sport is a microcosm of society,” says Max Jordaan, the transformation and stakeholder relations executive of Cricket South Africa. “If you have inequalities in society, you have inequalities in sport.” South Africa is the most unequal country in the world.

Many leading black African cricketers have attended private schools since readmission, either because their family could afford it or with sport scholarships.

While the annual budget of leading private schools – or model C schools, elite public schools which schooled white children during apartheid – for cricket alone is often in the region of one million rand (£53,000), Jordaan says, some government schools do not have a budget for sport at all.

Indeed, a majority of government schools do not play cricket at all. “The location of the best facilities is still in and amongst those who were previously in privileged positions.”

Yet these inequities affect different types of cricketers in different ways. Since readmission, there has been a stark difference in the performances of black African batsmen and bowlers. While Bavuma scored the only Test century, black African bowlers have taken 29 five-wicket hauls.

Similar differences are detectable at domestic level. From 1999-2000 to 2018-19, there were more black African bowlers among the top 50 wickettakers in domestic cricket than black African batsmen among the top 50 run-scorers in 19 out of 20 seasons, according to research in Cricket Monthly.

Developing batsmen depends more on a quality of facilities, coaching and match-time than bowlers. “As a batsman the game is about confidence, you need to have good facilities. You need to have grass facilities and grass ovals so you can seamlessly move from school level to club and national and so on,” Jordaan explains. “You cannot prepare on a cement strip and then go on to perform.”

To an extent, the differences between black African representation between batsmen and bowlers may be self-perpetuating. Historically, “for black Africans, the role models have all been bowlers,” says one Cricket South Africa insider.

Many believe that CSA has been far too slow to recognise these issues; Haroon Lorgat, the former chief executive, has previously admitted that the board got “complacent” after the emergence of Makhaya Ntini.

But in recent years, there have been signs of a more interventionist approach. From 2017-18, CSA stipulated both that all domestic sides

must select two black African players to bat in the top six: one of several specific targeted measures to address the paucity of black African batsmen emerging from the system from youth cricket upwards.

“We needed to specifically look at putting in place programmes to ensure that disadvantaged players will play in the top-six positions,” Jordaan explains. “To be transformative you need to be leading the process. It is about fairness and equality of opportunity.”

There are glimpses of the representation of black African players at under-age level improving. Wicketkeeper-batsman Wandile Makwetu, 20, who captained South Africa Under-19s and has made three 90-plus scores in his past five firstclass innings, is considered a great hope. Yet Makwetu’s first-class career remains embryonic, and there are no black African batsmen at all among the 20 leading run-scorers in franchise cricket this season.

“South Africa with an 80 per cent black African population should have produced many more such players,” Jordaan reflects. “We require far more investment into cricket facilities of quality standard in our schools in disadvantaged areas.”

And so, in many ways, to concentrate on the absence of Bavuma from the national team misses the point. The lack of any black African batsmen is not about one batsman losing form; it is, instead, about the structural barriers that remain to South Africa producing leading black African batsmen.