TELFORD VICE, Cape Town | Tuesday 3.30pm.
CRICKET’S scales of racial justice tipped further toward equilibrium on Tuesday when Vincent Barnes was named coach of the senior Western Province team from next season.
Barnes will become the first black coach of a senior provincial side in South Africa in the post-unity era, having served as Duncan Fletcher’s assistant for four years. The vacancy at Newlands was created when Fletcher accepted the England coaching job.
The president of the Western Province Cricket Association, Percy Sonn, fresh from his failed challenge for the United Cricket Board (UCB) presidency on a transformation ticket, called Barnes’ appointment “a vindication of the good intentions and plans which the two bodies (the Western Province Cricket Board and the Western Province Cricket Union) formulated at unity in the Western Cape”.
The appointment comes three weeks after Rushdi Magiet’s elevation to convenor of the national selectors, and would seem to add substance to the UCB’s stated commitment to the transformation of what remains mainly a white sport in South Africa.
Barnes, 39, is currently running the Western Province academy. He is also jointly coach of the South African A team and has coached the national under-19 side. Although Barnes represented Western Province after unification, he played most of his cricket in the non-racial camp before his retirement in 1995.
He made his first-class debut in 1978 and played for Western Province and the then Transvaal under the auspices of the non-racial SA Cricket Board. Barnes was twice selected for SA Council on Sport (Sacos) teams and was Sacos’ “Sportsman of the Year” in 1986.–MWP