Last Thursday the Minister of Sport and Recreation Ngconde Balfour named a ministerial task force charged with, among other things, looking into the United Cricket Board’s claims that the quota system was no longer necessary when picking teams at national and senior interprovincial levels.
Less than 48 hours later, in Wellington, the South African rugby team surprisingly replaced one of its two black players, Lawrence Sephaka, with Ollie le Roux, less than 30 minutes into the Test match against New Zealand, and lost the other, scrumhalf Bolla Conradie, later in the game with what appeared to be a knee injury.
Sephaka was to reappear later in the game for the aforementioned Le Roux, but — and allowing for the failing sight of the aged — it seemed suspiciously as if (and whisper this softly) there was an All White Springbok team taking on the All Blacks, if only for a while.
What does this all mean? Can we expect another ministerial task force to thunder into Ellis Park and Newlands, demanding to look at the quotas or gentlemen’s agreements or whatever it is that governs the selection of rugby teams? Will the African National Congress Youth League boycott or otherwise attempt to disrupt South Africa’s home Tri-Nations Test matches? I hope not, but at the same time there seems to be a lesson for South African sport somewhere in this. Quite what it is, however, is difficult to say.
On to happier matters and this week’s announcement of the first national cricket team of the season for a triangular tournament in Morocco next month. There are a couple of surprises in the squad — no Neil McKenzie, no Steve Elworthy while Justin Kemp is recovering from ankle surgery, but Shaun Pollock has been confirmed as captain until the end of the World Cup and, because it seems important to take note of these things, there are five players of colour in the party.
Two players not in the reckoning, at least as far as the one-day side is concerned at the moment, but who might yet play a role as the World Cup comes around, are Gauteng quick-bowler David Terbrugge and Western Province left-hander Ashwell Prince. Terbrugge appears to be blocked out by the admirable Elworthy at the moment, but Prince is an intriguing case.
He won a maiden Test cap against Australia last summer despite being widely seen as a better one-day player. And although he still has some way to go before establishing himself as an automatic choice, he showed enough spunk against Australia to suggest that he might not be overawed in a tight and tense one-day situation.
The view of Prince as a one-day player was based largely on a perception that he was capable of getting himself in before giving his wicket away. Handsome 30s and 40s are all very well, but you don’t build international careers on them. Then again, exposure at the highest level against the best team in the world will have deepened Prince’s understanding of what he has to demand of himself.
The most significant squad named this week, however, was the South African team named for the Africa Cup in Lusaka in September. If the national and South Africa A squads are seen as the top two tiers of South African players, the Africa Cup squad probably slots in as the third level.
Of the 15-man squad, nine are players of colour and three are black Africans.
The point is that transformation is a process that needs time and trust to work itself through. The argument has been put forward that Rudolph Straeuli’s handing of Sephaka is part of a long-term plan to make Sephaka the cornerstone of the Springbok pack. If Sephaka knows this, then well and good, and Straueli needs to be trusted. And so, for that matter, should South African cricket be equally trusted.