The United Cricket Board of South Africa (UCB) must urgently reverse its scrapping of quotas because that decision had been based on “inadequate assessment” and “erroneous analysis” of information, the ministerial committee of inquiry on transformation in cricket said.
“The decision [to scrap quotas] therefore requires urgent and fundamental reconsideration by the UCB … The committee recommends that the UCB, as a matter of urgency and prior to the forthcoming 2003 [Cricket] World Cup, put in place the necessary process to ensure that the aforesaid resolution is rescinded,” said the committee report, released on Thursday.
And the UCB executive committee should once again be in charge of driving the transformation process. Its provincial affiliates had shown “a lack of common understanding” since a resolution during its national consolidation conference in July effectively abolished the transformation monitoring committee and placed responsibility at provincial level.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Ngconde Balfour established the ministerial committee of inquiry after the UCB dropped the quota requirements for black players on international, national and senior A-side provincial level. That decision was made during the three-day cricket indaba and was endorsed by the UCB council a week later.
As the quota row escalated — including threats by the African National Congress Youth League to disrupt next year’s world cup — the UCB maintained its research had shown unanimous support for this move as its transformation programme had exceeded expectations.
However, it subsequently emerged that the transformation monitoring committee had not recommended the scrapping of quotas as alleged during the July cricket indaba.
The UCB in August slammed the composition of the committee and said that any report should be “viewed with circumspection and cynicism”. It was initially reluctant to cooperate, but reversed this position following a meeting with the sports minister.
In its hard-hitting report the committee said the transformation targets set in the 1999 charter were not based on a proper analysis of demographics within the various UCB affiliates. Following its own investigation, the committee recommended new, upwardly revised transformation targets and quotas.
Although it recognised the contribution of the central UCB structures in driving the transformation process, the committee found that the well-resourced Gauteng and Northerns affiliates had been particularly slow in carrying out transformation.
In addition, it found provincial affiliates had circumvented transformation targets by poaching black players from other provinces, despite incentives to develop local black talent.
With particular reference to black cricketers, the committee found that their representation on provincial teams, with the exception of Border, was “woefully inadequate”.
Citing the KwaZulu-Natal Cricket Union’s intention to spend R12-milion on a media centre for the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the committee pointed out that the majority of the black population in Durban and Pietermaritzburg did not have a single cricket facility.
And the transformation programme to date had failed to produce “a significant number of black players, administrators and other officials who could compete and make a contribution to the game of cricket at all levels”.
To rectify this, the committee recommended a special committee to focus solely on the development of black cricketers and officials.