South African cricket is facing its racial reckoning and it’s high time that it’s happening.
Cricket South Africa (CSA) are staging their social justice and nation-building hearings – a truth and reconciliation commission – of sorts.
And there have been some truly heartbreaking stories told over the last two weeks.
From players being discriminated against, paid poorly, humiliations being swept under the carpet and some downright petty biases to the perpetuation of the same injustices being continued to this very day. It’s all going down.
But rather than go through all of the painful experiences as the hearings come to a close today, let’s rather look at how the game of cricket can best transform into a sport for all in South Africa.
FIRST off, let’s start with the grassroots game. I don’t know about you guys, but I got my first cricket set at 10.
I didn’t really care for the game until I moved to an old Model C school in 1992, which obviously coincided with the Proteas going to their first World Cup since readmission.
I remember seeing Jonty Rhodes run out Inzaman ul Haq with his famous dive and watching SA lose to England in THAT semifinal at school.
And then I grew to love the game thanks to Kimberley’s strong cricketing tradition in the coloured and Indian community.
My school had about half the kids in the provincial U13 side. But playing in the street against the kids from the neighbourhoods, it was tougher than beating those classmates.
I wonder what would have happened if those neighbourhood kids were picked on their talents and now whether they were able to rock up at practice.
Maybe then there’ll be less of a bias towards the talent from rich schools.
One of the stories I heard from former Protea spinner Aaron Phangiso was about the disparity in pay for the players.
I understand that CSA have different contracts available for national-team players, with a certain number of big “central” deals and different match fees for fringe players.
Phangiso explained that during tours there would be even more differences.
Big match fees would go to the senior stars while touring “passengers” would have to split a match fee between four of them.
Phangiso rightly called out the practice for being unfair.
Now I know some of you will say that AB or Dale Steyn deserve a bigger pay pakkie. But why?
They are already on the big central contract, plus their exposure and performances have won them lucrative endorsements and overseas deals too.
The least the national team can do is reward the best players in the country equally when it comes to touring.
After all, their work in the nets keeps everyone sharp and so the financial spread must equal. It’s that simple. SORT IT OUT.
One of the most blatant stories of taking sides along racial lines was Aya Myoli’s battle with the Dolphins and white captain Robbie Frylinck.
As the story goes, Myoli called out Frylinck for calling black players “quotas” after he lost his place in the team.
Myoli told Frylinck that he hoped that his kid felt the pain of being missing out on selection over the colour of his skin, so Frylinck could know that reality too.
Frylinck allegedly hit Myoli and a fight had to be stopped.
But when it went to the union, then CEO Pete van Zyl told Myoli that the union was on his side and that there would be no need for lawyering up, only to be double-crossed having dropped the charges against Frylinck.
To make matters worse, a number of black players banned in match-fixing scandals want the investigations to be reopened with more stories of black scapegoatting and whitewashing.
Here it’s blatantly wrong and that truth must come to light and justice must be done.
What’s fair is fair.
Finally, we come to, the biggest controversy.
They’ve been called the “Big Five” and “the Clique”.
But during the time that many black Proteas were treated as handlangers in the national team, the team was captained by Graeme Smith and backed up by his pals Mark Boucher, Jacques Kallis and Paul Harris.
What makes it even more sinister is that Smith is now the Director of Cricket with Boucher and Harris on the coaching staff, after batting coach Kallis bounced for more money, but blamed it on transformation.
What we and these manne must understand it that we’ll never really go far with cliques.
It goes back to access. Only then will we find the talent that keeps our sport alive and thriving.
And then it should be manne like Biff, Boucher, Kallis and Harris that must plough back into the game everything that was handed to them so they can redeem themselves.