Transformation farce

I received the following article from hockey writer Jonathan Cook which he has asked us to forward around to the South African sports community.

I would love your feedback around transformation in schoolboy sports….:

Hi all

When will this farce end?

JONATHAN COOK

THE KZN Inland encounters with Western Province in Bellville a fortnight ago reflected the poison infecting SA cricket.

In order to hide the lack of genuine, grassroots (and I mean ‘grassroots’ – at the bottom, among young, talent-identification disadvantaged and advantaged white and black kids) development taking place in the midlands and in SA, ruling body Cricket South Africa has enforced window-dressing quotas disguised as “transformation”.

If CSA quite rightly, in terms of their policy, view Pakistani Imran Tahir as a “developed” or “advantaged” (white) player as he did not come through the national “development” system, how can Inland be allowed to pick fellow non-South Africans, from Pakistan or Zimbabwe, as they have done, as quota players among the stipulated five minimum in their league if they are also not a product of the SA “development” system.

For that matter, how was, and still is, Herschelle Gibbs considered part of the “development” quota in the Cobras and SA team if he was a product of top private school Bishops? For that matter, how was, and is, Makhaya Ntini considered the same seeing he was a product of fine cricket nursery Dale College.

Yes, Ntini may have been disadvantaged economically and so on at the time he was discovered by Border cricket officer Greg Hayes, but post that moment he became an integral part of the system. And, for that matter, how can 31-year-old Ntini and 34-year-old Gibbs still be part of the Proteas’ non-white quota on the field and in tour squads after playing a total of 181 Test matches and 417 limited-over internationals between them?
On a more personal level one can see the damage this transformation farce is doing.
Among the14-man Inland squad to meet WP in the three-dayer and subsequent one-dayer was Clint Bowyer.

Bowyer (23) has delivered outstanding service to Inland over the years. During Inland’s two-year life span as a first-class outfit going into the current season, the left-handed opener averaged 34 including a 98 in the three-dayers and 36 in the 45-over stuff – better than any of his challengers.

His pedigree is second to none. The Kokstad-born “Bodjie” was a few boundaries short of Jonty Rhodes’s aggregate runs in a first XI season at Maritzburg College and broke a decades-old record for most number of centuries. He went on to play for SA in the U19 World Cup. Pre-Inland’s elevation to first-class cricket, Bowyer was a whisker away from receiving the Associate Province player of the year, his stellar season marginally eclipsed by equally on-song team-mate Yusuf Abdullah.
A week before Bellville he made a gutsy 46 and then 11 against a Dolphins XI including the attack that troubled the Titans this weekend.

Yet Bowyer was left out of the three-day and one-day matches in Bellville. The “quota” openers who did play managed 23 between them in four innings. Aside from personal issues, this forced selection also impacts on team results, as the best team cannot be picked.
Hashim Amla falls under the quota banner, yet he went to DHS – an institution that has produced more SA Test cricketers than any other. Dolphins rookie David Miller went to top cricket school Maritzburg College. His father is an auctioneer; Hashim’s is a doctor. They both appear equally “advantaged”, yet they are classed differently in terms of “transformation”. Why?
At school level, players who are borderline first XI – or even second team cricketers - get to represent their province because they are the best available to fill the quota, leaving genuine provincial contenders to reflect on their unfortunate white skin colour and wonder whether this ridiculous method of selection warrants continuing with the game. Again, you encourage and support the development of players who do, and do not, come from a cricket culture at age-group level, with sustainable, targeted talent-identification development through the age groups – and most importantly you foster the culture of excellence – to be the best you can be – so that, right from the start, young cricketers (and young and old sportspeople in all SA sporting codes for that matter) learn that excellence is rewarded with selection to the teams they aspire to play for.

Probably the farce of all farces is the claim by CSA director of amateur cricket Max Jordaan on the CSA website that Shaun Pollock is one of the “fruits growing from the seeds planted in our development garden.”

For goodness’ sake, Polly had one of the best fast bowlers in SA history as a father, arguably the best ever SA batsman as an uncle, a top cricket school and the mentorship of fast bowling great Malcolm Marshall in his formative years.

In the CSA website section on “Developing Winners”, Jordaan writes: “Cricket in South Africa is certainly an agent of change, but this must not be construed as change at the expense of one community for another, or one individual for another.”

“Change in our cricket community has two objectives: it must be morally right, and it must be aimed at making us the best in the world.

“We have achieved the former and to achieve the latter we have to ensure that we develop and utilise all the human resources available to us.”

On just about every count, I feel that Jordaan is wrong.

The lack of genuine grass-roots development of disadvantaged South Africans, particularly those who may show talent but lack the wherewithal to take it further, is a crime.
Let’s stop window-dressing and deal with the real issues, the issues that take thought, planning and real commitment.

Let’s get real, let’s get honest, let’s be courageous.