Telford Vice looks at the shenanigans behind the resignation of United Cricket Board president Ray White
The covers were peeled off South African cricket at the weekend, and the cracks in the exposed surface were more than superficial.
On Saturday, Ray White bowed to pressure from within and resigned as president of the United Cricket Board (UCB), ending a tenure in which he was seen to do little but lurch from one public relations disaster to the next.
A day later UCB managing director Ali Bacher laid out his and South African cricket’s inexorably entwined future at administrative level until the 2003 World Cup in this country.
>From the distance of headlines the two developments may seem unrelated, but they were thrown together in a letter from national selector and UCB general council member Gerald Majola to White dated January 1 2000. A copy of the letter, which was widely credited with prompting White to jump, is in the possession of the Mail & Guardian.
The letter begins cordially – “Dear Raymond” – and ends with, “I take this opportunity to wish you well for the New Year.”
However, in the four pages of impassioned prose between those formalities, White is accused of blackmail, retarding the transformation process, and of attempting to ensure the reins controlling the UCB and the World Cup remain in the hands of one man: Bacher.
If ever the UCB has produced an administrator who could be mistaken for a flannelled fool it was White, which is unfortunate because he remains genuinely concerned with bedrock issues such as the forlorn state of club cricket in South Africa. He has also already put in a significant amount of work towards the World Cup.
But the Johannesburg lawyer who ambled along the corridors of cricketing power with the air of a distracted professor will be remembered for leading the game through some of its least impressive moments since South Africa’s return from apartheid-induced international isolation in 1991.
During the Newlands Test match against the West Indies last summer he read the UCB’s “Transformation Charter” to a packed house, an exercise aimed at showing cricket to be at the forefront of change in South African sport.
However, White departed from the prepared script to add that cricket “did not need interference from politicians”. The result of the predictable consternation within and outside the game was an embarrassing public apology.
In February last year White took another broadside after South Africa selected an all-white team for a one-day international in New Zealand, and last month a similar blunder saw a side composed entirely of pale males form a Gauteng-Northerns XI to take on the English tourists.
White also presided over the UCB’s support of international fast bowler Makhaya Ntini, which was given before, during and after Ntini was tried, convicted and then found not guilty on appeal on a rape charge.
Bacher announced on Sunday that he would relinquish his current position on July 1 to move into fulltime organisation of the World Cup. However, he added he would continue to run the UCB for the next two years while grooming a black successor – who would report directly to him. Both would then report to the board.
Majola said Bacher’s statement did not accurately convey what had been agreed at a UCB general council meeting on Saturday.
“The two-year period is the maximum time, and even then if the new MD doesn’t make it we will have to find someone else,” Majola said on Sunday. “Both Ali and the new MD will report to the board – the new MD will not report to Dr Bacher.”
In his letter to White, Majola writes: “I wish to reiterate my dismay at the manner in which you manage transformation within the UCB. You acted against the intent and spirit of the general council by attempting to appoint Dr Ali Bacher to head both the UCB affairs and the 2003 World Cup. This was your considered attempt to misguide a number of general council members of which I am but one.
“Your telephonic discussions to individual board members regarding this matter was an abuse of trust placed in your leadership.
“I was not the only board member, as you claimed, to be against your manipulation of duly taken board decisions. This is borne out by the correspondence sent to you by [general council member] Tim Khumalo …
“Your fax dated December 1 1999 is indicative of your manner of operation: `A minority of general council members feel strongly that notwithstanding the executive committee’s unanimous recommendation they wish to debate the issue at a council meeting.’
“Your strategy to discount the views of dissenting opinions does not augur well for genuine democratic processes within the UCB …
“Your quid-pro-quo approach with PC (Flip) Potgieter [president of Eastern Province cricket and a general council member], in which you expect him to support you after you assisted the Eastern Province Cricket Board in obtaining financial assistance, is no less than blackmail.
“This is not a trademark of a person that leads with integrity. Provinces should not be held at ransom after you have performed your duty as president in assisting them.”
Majola writes: “Your interference in the Gauteng-Northerns XI selection bears testimony of your insensitivity towards transformation in South African cricket.
“It is incredible that you had not consulted with the Black Africans [sic] within the executive of the UCB before embarking on your ludicrous intervention …
“I … cannot allow you to retard the … transformation of this game, in defiance of the efforts of many.”
Bacher, insisting that his announcement was “a positive thing”, seemed irked at Majola’s implied charge that he was attempting to hang on to too much power.
“My intention is to have a two-year period in which to mentor a black cricket administrator, to assimilate him into South African cricket,” Bacher said. “If after a year he’s competent in one of the areas that remain under my control I’ll hand it over to him.
“It’s a personal challenge to me because I’m the only person who knows what’s happening in South African cricket at 5.30am and late at night – I’m the only person who can do this. He’ll report to me and the both of us will report to the board.
“The easiest thing for me would have been to do the World Cup and nothing else, but I’m going to be assisting the transformation of South African cricket at an administrative level for the next two years.”