Cricket is now integrated in South Africa and the national team is taking on the best in the world, but in Lenasia they still support the Pakistan team
CRICKET: Luke Alfred
THOSE who attended the limited overs match between Pakistan and a Transvaal Invitation XI at the MR Varachia stadium in Lenasia last Thursday were witness to the rarity of a double century before lunch.
Such was the confusion between respective sets of scorers that the Pakistan batsman Ijiaz Ahmed was awarded his first century shortly before the break, only to be awarded another minutes later. The mistake was rectified to the satisfaction of all (Ijiaz eventually falling to White for 112), but not before a wave of panic — not to mention hilarity — had rippled through the press tent.
The Ahmed incident was symptomatic of the occasion as a whole, where celebration overlapped regularly with statistical hiccup. When 12th man for the day Waqar Younis came on to bowl late in the Transvaal innings (the Invitation side chasing Pakistan’s 262), the festivities turned to pandemonium as the kids in the stands waved Pakistani flags and chanted his name.
Jack Manack, the batsman on strike, was so intimidated by Waqar’s appearance that he appeared to apologise to the Pakistani bowler after he had hit him for four.
Such were the contortions of a match which brought a visiting international side to Lenasia for the first time, and where the locals, despite having representatives such as Jack and Hoosein Manack and Imraan Munshi in the Invitation side, were supporting Pakistan all the way.
When I asked Ahmed Dinat, a former Transvaal Board player and spectator for the day, why this was he said the Pakistanis were being supported because of religious and cultural affiliation. His wife Selma put it this way: “We’ve built up a resistance towards South African cricket as such because of the deprivation — we didn’t have the nets and all the facilities that our white counterparts had. And that is why we would be anti-South African when South Africa plays.
“Like my dad, for instance, watched cricket at the Wanderers but he had to sit in the fenced area, in the cage.”
Dinat, whose late father Abbas was a gifted left-handed batsman who is said to have rivalled Basil D’Oliveira, believes it is the younger and not the current generation of Indian cricketers who will be fully South African.
This view was shared by Aslam Khota, one of the organisers of the Pakistan game and cricket correspondent for the Lenasia Indicator.
While Khota was thrilled that the Pakistanis managed to find space in their itinerary to visit Lenasia, he and his committee have had to struggle to persuade the United Cricket Board to bring international cricket to the Varachia stadium. “We have been beging the Board to bring this to us,” he said. “I must say, chaps like Ahmed Khan of the Lenasia junior cricket league tried on their own. There was a lot of assistance from Goolam Rhaja (assistant manager on the South African team’s tour of England) and eventually even a chap like Dr Ali Bacher and Krish Mackerdhuj managed to convince the Pakistanis that they should play here.”
While Khota hopes to be able to bring touring teams to Lenasia every alternate season, he is under no illusions as to the difficulties facing Indian cricketers throughout the country. Citing Goolam Rhaja as an example, he believes affirmative action has only taken place on the administrative level.
“When we had got in initially we genuinely felt that affirmative action had to be implemented. We had felt in the beginning already that once two or three years had passed by, and these youngsters didn’t make the grade, they were going to have to work extra hard to get in. But really, from the outset it never really happened. I would have been satisfied if they had been given a fair chance, but it didn’t happen.”
I asked Khota if everything could be blamed on the system: was it true for instance that young Indian cricketers lacked the mental toughness to operate at the highest level? “I’ve been thinking about this in-depth recently,” he said, “We had one of our youngsters say that, you know in the old days we had something to play for. Today there is nothing to play for. Now we’ve actually got to educate our youngsters and tell them: you’re not going to be playing for a Lenasia-based Transvaal team anymore, you play for your full province, and from there you can go and represent South Africa. We’ve got to learn to think differently.”
The experience of the Indian commuity suggests that it is not only the lack of facilities and opportunity that remain a stumbling block for their cricketers, but their very sense of self-definition. As Indians who love Waqar rather than Jonty, they find themselves in a peculiar state of cultural suspension. Lenasia might be 40kn south west of Johannesburg but in spirit it is far closer to Delhi or Karachi.