International players have given coaching clinics in Soweto before, but English cricketers actually playing at the township’s stadium is far more
Cricket: Jon Swift
PERHAPS some of the real significance of an international team playing cricket in Soweto will not strike the England players quite as dramatically as it will those of us who proudly salute the flag of our new rainbow nation.
For it is a mark of the situation of somewhat uncomfortable flux in this country of ours that a cricket match between the English tourists and an invitation side this weekend should assume such
And poignant in the extreme that the match which so typifies the bridges haltingly being built comes, as it does, on the very eve of this country’s first nationwide democratic local elections. A fact which will be highlighted by the attendance during the match of President Nelson Mandela, his deputy Thabo Mbeki and provincial premier Tokyo Sexwale.
Nothing could illustrate quite as sharply the divisions which still exist in our emergent society as England’s rapid transition — in just three games — from a gentle pipe-opener on the champagne and strawberries opulence of Nicky Oppenheimer’s Randjesfontein parkland, through the determinedly East Rand bleakness of a day-night one-dayer against Easterns at Springs, to the current four- day game against a President’s XI at Elkah Stadium in Soweto.
Inside a week, the tourists will have tasted the lifestyle of the descendants of the Randlords, been exposed to the realities of cricket in the industrial heartland, and then touched base in the emotional epicentre of the changes which led to their being here in the first place.
It is 30 years since England last toured South Africa. It is nearly 20 since the Soweto students showed the first overt stirrings of the violent abhorrence of the system of apartheid felt by so many citizens, both black and white.
It was a spark which was to grow into the firestorm that changed the lives of South Africans forever and, while the stark contrasts that typify the gulf between Randjesfontein and Elkah Stadium still exist — perhaps more in the surroundings than in the two club grounds themselves — the very fact that the game is happening is, as the United Cricket Board’s Ali Bacher says, “a hugely important event”.
For South Africa, cricket, by its very nature, echoes some of the divisions existing in this
Bacher speaks vehemently and often about instilling a “cricket culture” into the underprivileged areas.
And the UCB has done something concrete about it through a development programme which is now starting to produce real results.
Cricket is, in short, no longer the preserve of the white man and while the development players — as clumsy a euphemism for black youngsters as anything the National Party semanticists ever dreamed up — may still have to blossom, the buds are there for all to see in the nascent spring of
It is something that the UCB fully understands. And is graphically pointed out by the Board’s Ali Bacher. “In many ways this game is an important to South African cricket as a Test match,” says Bacher, “and it indicates the seriousness of the United Cricket Board’s intentions to have cricket played by all South Africans.
“The only way to ensure progress is for top international sportsmen to be seen to be playing in the townships. By holding a four-day game in Soweto with some of South Africa’s finest players taking part, the role models for the youth of this country — both black and white — are on show.
“It is an important game, not just for cricket, but for all South African sport and will hopefully set a new pattern for other sports such as rugby. In future, sides like the New Zealand All Blacks must play in the townships.” Bacher also points out the change that this represents in terms of the involvement of previous touring teams.
“In the past, top players — from South Africa and overseas — have held coaching clinics in the black areas. They have gone in, run the clinic and then they have had to leave.” Now it’s all changed.
This change is perhaps best personified in the involvement of two people from very different backgrounds: Sylvia Tshoma, who has taken leave from her job as a Soweto schoolteacher to ensure that the venue lives up to the occasion, and Hansie Cronje, who leads the local side.
It is, in the South African context, equally fitting that the invitation team should be led by our national captain, a talented and erudite man of Afrikaans descent, born and bred in Bloemfontein. And that the combination he leads should include, alongside top names from the eight Castle Cup provinces represented in the selection, three young men who fall into the category of those the game in this country seeks to affirm.
Eastern Province wicketkeeper-batsman Lulama Mazikazana has represented this country at Under-24 level, and despite a rush of blood under a blanket of racial abuse in Sri Lanka which led to Mazikazana losing his cool and being suspended for the remainder of the recent tour, remains a
So too is Geoffrey Toyana, a still raw yet potentially elegant left-handed bat on the evidence of the 28 runs he made for the Oppenheimer XI at Randjesfontein as the tourists swept to an emphatic 112-run victory on Tuesday.
More important though is that Toyana made the bulk of those runs against the England pace attack after opener Mandy Yachad departed after facing just five balls from the fiery Devon Malcolm.
Toyana was equally in awe of the big man from Derbyshire who shattered the South Africans at the Oval last season with a nine-wicket haul at the cost of 57 runs — the sixth best return in Test history — but stuck admirably to his task. He is a player to watch.
Also included is Boland’s Henry Williams, a young seamer who has earned his inclusion in top flight provincial cricket on merit. Williams, like Toyana, still has some rough edges, but he was good enough to have the stylish Mark Ramprakash trapped lbw two runs short of a half century as he was winding up for a big knock, and Robin Smith caught behind on
It is from these “development players” as much as from the other young comers of the ilk of Gerry Liebenberg, Nicky Boje, Jacques Kallis, Dale Benkenstein, Lance Klusener, Mark Bruyns and HD Ackermann that the future health of the game rests.
This weekend’s game in Soweto underpins this inescapable fact.
The team: Hansie Cronje (captain), Jonty Rhodes, Micky Arthur, Phillip Amm, Pieter Strydom, Geoffrey Toyana, Lulama Mazi-kazana, Mark Davis, Henry Williams, Richard Snell, Meyrick Pringle