Last week, with the Cricket World Cup three months away, South Africa discovered the rather disturbing fact that its sports minister does not give ”a shit” about three-quarters of the national squad. This while his counterparts in other cricketing countries are geeing up their troops.
Minister of Sport and Recreation Ngconde Balfour’s comments can be safely taken as authentic, despite his disclaimers. They were released by the United Cricket Board (UCB) to pre-empt the report of a ministerial task team packed with malcontents who could be relied on to demand the reinstatement of player quotas.
The move reflected the UCB’s anger at the contrast between the minister’s public bonhomie and abusively bullying style in private.
Why has Balfour suddenly decided to put the boot into cricket? He said not a word about the 26-member Springbok rugby squad that left for Europe last week with just four black players.
He evidently feels the cricket establishment shows insufficient deference, particularly by moving on quotas without his blessing. This despite the fact he was invited to (and missed) the July conference that scrapped them — and that they were set by the board in the first place.
More influential may be the African National Congress Youth League’s typically crude, ultra-nationalist campaign on quotas, and the imminence of the ANC’s national conference — one of the few forums in which the league has any clout.
Rumoured to believe himself politically vulnerable, Balfour may feel further exposed by the demographics of South Africa’s world squad. The UCB’s former boss, Ali Bacher, is said, unwisely, to have pledged the inclusion of five black players in every world cup XI as part of his pitch to the government.
The quota issue has been misleadingly festishised, as if the UCB’s decision signalled the abandonment of black cricketers.
In fact, it was taken by 200 people representing a broad cross-section of cricket, three-quarters of them black South Africans. Central to the conference outcome was a speech by Western Province batsman Ashwell Prince insisting black players did not want to be viewed as charity cases.
At all but the national and provincial tiers, quotas have been raised. The provinces may now run transformation, but their selection procedures remain under intense UCB scrutiny — the average this season has been four black players a side a game. Board CEO Gerald Majola intervenes even on minutiae like batting orders.
Anti-UCB conspiracy theorists accuse its black leaders, and the mainly black selection panel, of fronting for white diehards. But the board is quite obviously desperate to foster more black players of the first rank.
The issue for the hardliners of the youth league is the demographic symbolism of the national side, particularly in the global spotlight of the world cup. What they do not explain is how, practically, the demographics are to be changed
No purpose is served by selecting black tokens who are unable, or unready, to withstand the merciless pressures of the world game. President Thabo Mbeki, who suggests South Africans should accept failure in the cause of transformation, speaks as a non-sporting brainbox who knows only the ”cold cozening strife” of power politics. Where would a five-year slump leave cricket as a spectator-driven business?
This has nothing to do with the inherent cricket-playing ability of different racial groups. No one, given the mighty feats of the West Indies over the years, could sanely argue this.
What it does reflect is that too few black South Africans are receiving the required depth and intensity of exposure from the youngest age.
Racial transformation in sport is not comparable with affirmative action in, say, the public service, where the tasks are relatively unspecialised and a suitably talented person can learn by doing. International sport involves some of the most specialised activities known to humankind.
Perhaps 30 men in the world can bowl a cricket ball at 140kph, accurately and for a sustained period. Facing Pakistan’s Shoaib Akhtar, a batsman has less than a half a second to gauge the speed, line, pitch, and degree of bounce and swing of the ball.
No amount of the anti-apartheid struggle discipline Balfour thinks is the solution, and no quantity of on-the-job acclimatisation, can equip him for this. It requires total immersion in a cricket-playing culture, virtually from birth, and years of instruction and the schooling of reflexes. Few black youngsters have the benefit of this.
At issue is not racial bias or foot-dragging. It is the daunting development conundrum of how to create conditions for more world-class black talent to emerge.
The board spent R34-million last year on development, but has concluded that the ”shotgun approach” — blanket countrywide promotion — is not the answer. The shift now is towards targeted support for black communities with cricket-playing traditions.
Then there is the role of Balfour’s own department, whose contribution to cricket development is pitifully small and dwindling. In sharp contrast with the millions lavished on the South African Sports Commission — a jobs-for-comrades outfit with no apparent function — the UCB’s annual grant has fallen from R450 000 to R120 000 in three years.
In effect, Balfour’s strident demands for more transformation are an unfunded mandate. If he cannot meaningfully help the UCB build black cricket, he should at least stay out of its hair.