The United Cricket Board is taking the game to the people, and not just South Africa’s people but to other countries in Africa as well
CRICKET: Jon Swift
THERE is a certain strangeness about the notion that international cricket will be played at Paarl. In the recent South African experience the Boland town is a place where top cyclists come from and they have a big Boxing Day athletics meeting.
There is also something novel about the thought that this country will be playing one-day internationals against Kenya. In recent memory, that has been the home of Kilimanjaro and nothing much else except some of the world’s best coffee.
But then, relying on the memeory of history since the Sixties is a dangerous business in this country’s truly remarkable transformation and the thrust sport has added to the impetus of our changing perceptions about one another.
It should not be a surprise that Boland have been awarded one of the limited overs internationals during next year’s tours by India and Australia.
Not when the oft-stated policy of cricket’s administrators is to bring the game to the people.
And then there is the first Test against the English being played in Pretoria of all places! Again, the more natural association is with snorting forwards and kicking flyhalves.
But then Centurion Park is one of the most charming venues in the South African game and has been voted a fine venue by both local players and touring sides. It is also a fine venue from the spectator’s point of view. You are close to the action and there are acres of grass to relax on.
There is the feeling that the air you are breathing is neither bottled nor hemmed in by concrete.
The free-flowing spirit of the game lives at Centurion Park. All that remains now is to lather the Poms within its green confines.
Adding to this emphasis on the game in Pretoria is the way the United Cricket Board’s Ali Bacher sees it. “We have to help promote a Test culture, a cricket culture in the province,” he says. And so, a Test match.
Kenya is a different matter al-together, but equally heartening in the examination. By agreeing to be part of a four-nation tournament, which also includes India and Pakistan, the game in this country has owned up to two important things.
First that we are truly African and justly proud of being part of the promotion of the world’s greatest game on the ineptly named Dark Continent. And second that the traditional ties which kept the game going in the years of apartheid, while still important, are no longer the paramount factor.
The UCB is also eager to spread this intial net — the quadrangular tournament takes place next September-October — to our closer neighbours Zimbabwe and Namibia. This is an equally healthy move towards real progress as the sporting citizens of the world we have lately been re-instateed as.
“It is in South Africa’s interests to try and help with the promotion of the game of cricket in Namibia, Zimbabwe and Kenya,” says Bacher. “If we can create strong structures in those regions it will upgrade the standard of cricket on the continent.” Just so.
The sooner the harsh edges of recent memories are softened by real progress the better. Making inroads into Africa is a start, just as is spreading the gate money of the big international matches as widely as possible.
Hence the game at Paarl.
One senses that it is not beyond the bounds of reason to suggest that this expansion will not end with our neighbours and the foray to Kenya. This road, once travelled, could lead to such exotic destinations as Dar es Salaam and Marrakesh.
And the widening of the international net from the traditional Test centres can only have the effect of adding further bloom to the development programme so firmly in place.
I await the five-day Test match in Soweto. For can it really be that far away?