/ 4 February 2011

SA Indians rally behind Amla

Sa Indians Rally Behind Amla

I remember well my days of being a diehard Pakistan supporter and going to Kingsmead to watch the formidable Waqar Younis and Wasim Akram do their thing. A South African Muslim of Indian origin, I wasn’t alone.

Back in those days, when India or Pakistan constituted the opposing team, a visit to Kingsmead was a subcontinental experience. People who shared my skin colour (and citizenship) would have their faces adorned with the Indian or Pakistani flag and chants of “Pakistan zindabad” [“Long live Pakistan”] were not uncommon.

Some, like my dad, would take it a step further and boo the likes of Alan Donald. Children and teenagers like myself would be told stories of cricketing greats like Yacoob Omar, who would never have the opportunity to shine on an international arena because of the stain of apartheid, and we would be reminded of the giant sand pits that constituted sports fields at the schools we attended.

But somewhere along the line things changed and my dad’s early morning telephonic cricket analyses shifted from discussing Wasim Akram’s yorkers to assessing Hashim Amla’s batting technique.

The scenes at Kingsmead recently when India took on South Africa, almost 20 years later, mirrored this shift. Most people of colour were waving and displaying the more colourful flag on their faces and the cheers for the Proteas could no longer be associated with a single race group — so much so that a request for an interview with the Indian supporter behind me was met with a defensive “I don’t have to talk to you”.

Shifting allegiance
Proteas supporter Asif Essop was more than willing to chat and he shared my sentiments. “I think definitely things have changed. If you look at the series that was played between Pakistan, the West Indies and South Africa, I think at that stage many Indians in South Africa supported Pakistan. I believe the allegiance now seems to have shifted. I think there is a major shift in the support that the Proteas receive now compared with then.”

But, unlike me, Essop has supported the South African team since sports sanctions were lifted. “I always supported South Africa because I believe in the whole transformation process — that we are now having an administration that is united. It encompasses everyone who lives in the country,” he said.

But apartheid or no apartheid, when India first toured South Africa my brother and I would be at practice sessions, pen and miniature cricket bat in tow, and it was the autographs of Kapil Dev and Sachin Tendulkar, not Donald and Andrew Hudson, that we were after.

The memories of watching the likes of Omar and Mustapha Khan play cricket at Tills Crescent were still far too fresh, our schools far too under-equipped and the national team far too white for me to feel patriotic.

It was only when Amla emerged as a Protea that I became remotely interested in how the national team fared, but not wholeheartedly so.

And Essop said it’s the same for many other Indians. “I think the change is the result of Hashim Amla coming into the team and Indians seeing that the team is more representative.”

Unity in SA
Cricket commentator Shafiek Abrahams agreed. “It’s a combination of the unity that’s happening in this country and Hashim Amla representing South Africa and doing well. And that’s probably why there’s this strong allegiance towards him, not just within the Indian community but in the rest of South Africa as well.

“Before there were more Indian flags than South African flags. There’s a big shift towards Indian South African support of South Africa. That allegiance to India will still be there but, I can tell you now, that shift has taken place.”

Journalist Iqbal Khan believes that it is more a case of a generation gap than a shift in allegiance: “The younger people who don’t know what happened during apartheid times are going with the flow and they think that everything in South Africa is rosy. People who have been through the difficult times and felt the effect of apartheid are still not supporting South Africa. I’m one of them.”

But surely this cannot be true for everyone. Take my uncle, Cassim Dangor, who is in his 60s. His daughter, Fatima, who is 21, has always backed the Proteas. Not so him. When we would sit in the South Stand years ago, he appeared to be visibly confused about which team to back.

“I have been supporting South Africa only for the last 10 years or so,” he said. “I had mixed feelings when India first came here in 1992. They [South Africa] have given opportunities to a lot of people of colour now and there seems to be an acceptance by the players themselves to accept people of colour as their colleagues.

Growing support
“A lot more people are supporting the Proteas. I think eventually there’s been an understanding that we are all part of South Africa. So let’s support South Africa.”

This is not the case for Indian supporters Kamil Singh and Vishay Maharaj: “We are South African but it’s also nice to support our motherland,” they said. “We love the Indian players but Tendulkar is king. We support India all the time, but when South Africa plays another country we support South Africa.”

But they too admit that things are changing. “For the World Cup and the T20 World Cup we would only see India flags everywhere and now we see so many South African flags. It just shows there’s more South African support. You’ve got Hashim Amla there who is representing the Indians so definitely there is going to be more support.”

Donovan Perumal has supported South Africa all his life because he is “proudly South African”. He agrees that there has been a shift, which he attributes to Amla’s presence in the team. “I think there’s a shift because of Hashim Amla — before, none of us made it into the national team although we had a lot of talented players.

Even the KZN Dolphins team right now has a lot of talented Indian players but you have to be super good to make it into the South African team — now that Hashim Amla has sort of opened the door maybe things will change. People previously had reservations about the fact that the team may have been partially selected.”

And what does he make of the theory that South African flags dominated on the day because someone was handing them out for free at the entrance to Kingsmead? “Did you hear the response when Sachin Tendulkar got out? That was the loudest I’ve ever heard this crowd scream, so that obviously points to the fact that there’s more South African supporters in the stadium — If you’re supporting India you wouldn’t be happy that Tendulkar is out.”

Perumal has a point but, based on the behaviour of the gentleman behind me and his family, I see where Khan, too, is coming from. Am I still a die-hard Pakistani supporter? No. But I’m not quite a die-hard South African supporter yet either.

However, I must concede that the feelings in my heart are fast starting to mirror my father’s changing telephonic analyses. Perhaps I’ll get there in time for the World Cup.