Krish Mackerdhuj believes that conditions for cricket unity are now worse than three years ago
CRICKET: Paul Martin
THE President of the United Cricket Board, Krish Mackerdhuj, has made an unprecedented attack on “old regime” attitudes and actions — especially internationally — among senior cricket administrators and officials. He said the united front forged three years ago between cricket’s two ruling bodies was being undermined.
Mackerdhuj had become increasingly concerned at “all the presumptions being made by individuals” and “lack of consultation”. Anger at “old regime” attitudes and their misinterpretations of cricket’s controversial rebel past led on one occasion, he revealed, to him and two fellow-executive members walking out of a prestigious function during the South African tour to England.
In a startling set of criticisms made in two interviews with the Weekly Mail & Guardian, he alleged that a series of actions and procedures since 1991, and especially in the last few months, had run counter to the process of unity in cricket forged after tough negotiations through the mediation of the ANC.
“I am deeply concerned at the manner in which people are adapting to the change,” explained Mackerdhuj.
“Conditions for unity now seem to be worse than they were three years ago. If it were taking place today, it would not be as easy to bring about,” Mackerdhuj told the WM&G before the most recent UCB executive meeting last weekend.
It is understood that Mackerdhuj expressed some of his criticisms forthrightly at the meeting. Under the unity deal, brokered by Steve Tshwete, now Sports Minister, the United Cricket Board has an executive with five members from each of the two former cricket bodies.
“South African cricket will be run by the board,” he said, “and not by individuals.” Mackerdhuj emphasised at the meeting that “unity and progress in cricket was built on integrity and trust and that the board should never allow this to be undermined”.
Central to the concerns being felt by members of the former South African Cricket Board, with its long-standing anti-apartheid track record and involvement in the “liberation struggle”, is an apparent assumption that it is “business as usual” on the world cricket stage. This was “very evident on the tours to Australia and England”.
Mackerdhuj said he had been “absolutely flabbergasted” at the way the South African tours to Australia and England had been portrayed by the hosts — as a long-overdue “return” after an unfortunate break caused by politics, rather than as the start of a new era with a genuinely merit- selected team based on a non-racial structure.
“This (England) tour was not an extension of the 1960s and 1970s, but it was portrayed as that,” he remarked. “I was absolutely flabbergasted at how people from the old regime in South African and English cricket related to South African cricket as it had been in their past. No-one seemed to be bothered by what was taking place, and thus there were no protests.”
The only public expression of disquiet on the tour came from Mackerdhuj himself. At a cricket dinner given by the former England captain Bob Willis he recalls telling the gathering: “Cut out this rubbish. It’s a new beginning, not a continuation of the old system.”
Of all the occasions that most upset the former SACB leaders, the Lord’s Taverners Dinner just before the historic First Test at Lord’s came top. Here the centrepiece was a speech by Dr Ali Bacher, the UCB’s managing director, who had master-minded both England rebel tours to South Africa.
There was disquiet that instead of expressing his remorse for past disruption of English cricket and the sabotage of the anti-apartheid sports boycott, Bacher centred his address on how he had launched and run the black township cricket development programme. He declared that the development programme had political support and physical protection from anti-apartheid activities in the townships.
As for the the Gatting tour debacle of 1989-90, Bacher did not explain why he had insisted on the tour going ahead, despite offers for “unity meetings” from the National Sports Council if it were cancelled.
Instead, he merely thanked Deputy President Thabo Mbeki for intervening, on behalf of the ANC. The tour had then been shortened and aborted.
Three UCB executive members walked out left the event early. “I and my two colleagues were not going to put up with the sort of nonsense being talked about at this event,” Mackerdhuj explained.
His ire was also raised by the programme at the Lord’s Test match. “It was the most deplorable, disgusting document that was ever produced. There was no reference to the unity process. Nothing about the sacrifices made by our people, the cricketers on the non-racial side.
“Very little reference was made to the period between 1989 and 1994, which we feel was the most important era for South African cricket,” said Mackerdhuj.
Throughout the tours both to Australia and England he had observed the close association between some of the South Africans and those who had previously broken sanctions against South African sport.
“The isolation-days people came out of the woodwork. I now know who it was who broke sanctions. They won’t come back,” warned Mackerdhuj.