Booth: Apartheid keeps on Battling Strongly (and reply) (19 Jul 95)

Apartheid Keeps on Batting Strongly.

Three articles: Booth criticises Cricket in "the New South Africa". Dr Ali Bacher, managing director of the UCBSA, responds. Booth replies to this response. They appeared in the May 31 1995 issue of Critic (the Otago University Student Magazine). It is reproduced as it appeared in Critic, with the permission of Dr Booth. The article originally appeared in the New Zealand Herald.

[Douglas Booth, a recent traveller to South Africa and formerly of the Department of Politics at Macquarie University, now teaches sports history at the School of Physical Education at Otago University. Morris Morley teaches politics at Macquarie University. Dr Ali Bacher is managing director of the United Cricket Borad of South Africa.]

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APARTHEID KEEPS ON BATTLING STRONGLY.

*Promises that South African cricket would soon become multiracial have proved hollow. Morris Morley and Douglas Booth reveal how the townships lost their game.*

Nearly a decade after South Africa pledged to introduce blacks to cricket, the country continues fielding lily-white teams.

In 1986 the South African Cricket Union`s chief executive, Ali Bacher, assured the world that cricket was no longer a game solely for whites. A development programme in the townships, he promised, would produce black Springboks.

Bacher, now employed by the United Cricket Board (UCB), an amalgamation of the union and its rival anti-apartheid Cricket Board, bandies a plethora of statistics to illustrate the progress: 20,000 children introduced to mini-cricket each year; 200 under age cricket teams playing in 30 townships around the country; new cricket ovals in Soweto and Alexandra; over $1 million donated by the UCB to help build sports facilities in the townships, several dozen cricketers on scholarships to further their education.

Bacher, who has cleverly marketed himself as the personification of South African cricket, speaks reassuringly of the imminent arrival of local Brian Laras and Curtly Ambroses. Last year selec- tors chose eight blacks in the under-15, five in the under-17 and three in the under-19 national squads. In the words of one Bacher supporter, when our black cricketers come through the ranks they will come through like avocado pears and ripen at once.

But while a blooming protea has replaced the Springbok as the emblem of cricket, there is still good reason to be sceptical about blacks Rcoming through the ranksS and making their mark in either first class or test cricket - in the medium - or the long term. A new symbol has not expunged the ghosts of apartheid.

Consider the thorny question of merit. In the 1980s, the Cricket Union selected blacks to play in representative teams in an attempt to show its supposed anti-racist credentials. The ICC and the anti-apartheid movement rejected this tokenistic, window dressing approach. The only criterion for natural selection was merit; only merit would guard black dignity.

But if merit is todayUs byword, it is hard to see how blacks will ever be able to compete as equals while key features of the old apartheid cricket system continue to operate. The traditional route to success is still through the private clubs, which remain basically off-limits to black cricketers. These clubs are the major repositories of coaching expertise, the places where skills are honed and developed. For the most part, black cricketers train in inferior conditions and must travel long distances by bus to grounds in white areas. Often only a manager accompanies a team to its rendezvous with a white opponent with much back-up support. So when an under-trained black team eventually takes the field, it plays in an alien environment with little support.

Conrad Hunte, a West Indian former champion batsman who now works as a development officer in a project funded by the MCC, has identified a self-perpetuating cycle of discrimination. Many talented black junior cricketers show symptoms of white dependency; others see white officials as unfriendly. Both contribute to black under-performance and under-representation as white selectors, who already hold low expectations of development graduates, ignore blacks.

In the absence of equal access and opportunities, the UCBUs policy of merit selection paradoxically serves to maintain the white privilege that it supposedly rejects. At the same time, none of the dozen or so highly talented black players in todayUs South Africa, some of whom have played English country cricket, have been chosen to play representative cricket. Many observers felt that when incumbent test wicket-keeper David Richardson lost form last year, he should have been replaced by the Eastern Cape Tkeeper, Kenneth Masikizana, However, the selectors in their wisdom, overlooked the black Masikizana.

These developments have failed to produce any outcry from formerly outspoken black officials, who lie trapped in the tension between merit and development. Given that development is the key to merit, those who question the latter are forced to confront the superficiality of the changes within post-apartheid cricket - in the process raising some embarrassing questions about their own political clout within the sport.

South Africa has a rich tradition of black cricket. British missionaries introduced Africans to cricket in the Eastern Cape last century, while immigrants from India brought the game with them. Cricket became an important part of life and identity in both communities.

But when Ali Bacher`s cricket union launched its development program in the late 1980s, it targeted townships - Soweto and Alexandra (Johannesburg), Mamelodi (Pretoria) and Rock lands (Bloemfontein) - with no cricket history. While the anti-apartheid Cricket Board had expelled the union from traditional black cricket areas, the Union selected these townships for another reason. They were the townships from which black youth dusted the army during the insurrection in the mid 1980s. The government recognised the need to upgrade these townships and cricket was part of the strategy.

Why then hasn`t cricket returned to its traditional black homes since the establishment of the UCB?

One reason is that these areas remain sources of bitterness and discontent. Former regional officials of the old Cricket Board accuse their colleagues in the UCB of Rbetraying the struggleS, of RforcingS unification upon them and of political opportunism. Allegations of the UCB manipulating development are rife. For example, money ear-marked for equipment is spent busing black children to international test matches simply to fill seats. Unification forced black clubs to amalgamate, ostensibly to strengthen their competitiveness. Amalgamating tradition is not easy. It takes time to build allegiances to symbols and to develop working relationships. Nor could the new clubs absorb all the players. Three clubs with five teams each suddenly became one club with three teams. This left thousands of black enthusiasts without cricket homes.

The UCB has built cricket ovals in Alexandra and Soweto. In late 1994, government ministers, foreign dignitaries, and international sporting stars attended both openings. British Prime Minister John Major and West Indian batsman Brian Lara were at Alexandria. Yet not even Ali BacherUs choreography could hide black disinterest. More than 3 million people live in Soweto - less than a thousand watched New Zealand play a Transvaal Invitation XI to celebrate the opening of the townships first cricket oval.

Three weeks later, 20,000 mostly black fans watch Pakistan play an Eastern Province Invitation XI in Alice, a small rural town in the heartland of traditional black cricket.

The UCB will never have the money to build grounds in each of more than 700 black townships. Even its achievements to date leave a lot to be desired. One journalist covering the first game at SowetoUs new ground was singularly unimpressed by what he saw: R(It) consists of a strip, an artificial wicket, a wickedly dodgy outfield, a freshly painted stand and two sets of nets. The barrenness of the ground is not relieved by a single tree.

Nor can the UCB expect assistance expect assistance from a government whose priorities include housing, education, sanitation, electrification, health and employment needs.

Late last year, the president of the UCB, Krish Mackerdhj, publicly attacked the Told regime attitudes of some South African senior cricket administrators and officials. Instead of emphasising to their English and Australian counterparts that a new era in South African cricket had begun, based on merit selection and non-racism, these individuals preferred to blame politics for the "unfortunate" 30 year "break in play", and to act on the assumption it was back to "business as usual" on the world cricket stage. The target of Mackerdhuj`s anger was, in no small measure, the ubiquitous managing director of the UCB (and mastermind of the English rebel tours of South Africa), Ali Bacher.

While it may not be quite "business as usual" on the national cricketing stage, Mackerdhuj`s concerns about the image of South African cricket being conveyed abroad cannot be divorced from what is happening at home. Ali Bacher`s township cricket development program will, no doubt, produce some future black proteas. The harvest is unlikely to ever be bountiful, but then again, was this ever the aim?

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CRICKET REFORMS WILL TAKE TIME.

***In response to the above article arguing that cricket is still the preserve of white privilege in South Africa, Ali Bacher defends the work of the United Cricket Board.***

The success of the United Cricket Board`s development program cannot at this stage be judged by the lack of black players in our national squad.

The reason for the lack of these players lies in the past, where cricket was split on racial lines and whites received the best facilities, coaching and opportunities.

In those days, the former South African Cricket Board (SACB) was involved in development projects with limited resources, and the former South African Cricket Union (SACU) made the mistake in the 1970s of trying to develop black players from the age of 18 upwards. The SACU began its first national development program in 1986, where mini cricket was used to introduce boys under the age of 12 to the game. Their teachers were taught the basics on a large scale as there were simply not enough coaches to reach the massive pool of potential players.

In 1991 a concerted national development for all cricket people was put in place for the first time.

This background has both its good and bad points. The good has come out of the extensive growth of cricket, which has spread goodwill and new opportunities to thousands of youngsters in the disadvantaged areas. the bad part is that it took so long to happen.

We believe, though, that it is now common cause that the United Cricket Board of South Africa has in place a national development of considerable importance.

This was acknowledged at a recent development seminar attended by the chairman of the International Cricket Council, Sir Clyde Walcott, who himself had been a cricket development officer in his youth.

Expectations of instant results, such as black players new to cricket pouring into the national squad overnight, were unrealistic, he said. It took several generations for cricket to take hold in black communities in the West Indies, but when it did it transformed not only the world but the political dispensation of the West Indies. Sir Clyde warned against over-coaching at a young age and urged that we allow young black players the chance to develop their natural skills.

And this latter observation brings us to another important facet of the new face of South African cricket. We have to break the old mould of selection and coaching practices based broadly of the British system, and move into the modern international era which demands creativity and taking risk.

With so many cricketers coming from non-traditional cricketing backgrounds, we have to be geared to nurture their talent and [not (?)] throw them into the deep end quickly. Teams like the West Indies, India and Australia have brought this approach to the game, and all are successful.

The biggest challenge for cricketing nations is to bridge the gap between top junior cricket and first-class international cricket. South Africa has embarked on this course with the opening next month of the Plascon Cricket Academy. We will channel all our best young cricketers from all communities through this school.

Bridging this gap is of particular concern to us because we have found that players from disadvantaged communities often lack the confidence of players coming from a middle-class background. Apartheid was designed to breed inferiority in black communities, and we still see the seeds of this planted in young black players. In playing terms, the number of youngsters from black communities who are playing top junior cricket is impressive. All provincial and national representative teams from under-12 to under-19 have development players selected on merit. In a few years this will manifest itself in the senior national squad.

We are not saying that all development cricket began in 1986, but if one was to take that year as a benchmark of the start of the development program involving areas with no or little cricketing background, then it would be unrealistic to expect black players to have reached senior international status by now. However if they have not done so within the next few years, we will have to review our entire cricketing system.

The United Cricket Board, in terms of the tenet of its constitution, has a moral obligation to offer cricket to all communities. It has an enormous task because of the imbalances and neglect of the past, but we are committed to it.

At present there are full-time development operations in all our 11 provinces. A recent survey shows that players from these initiatives constitute 25% of those selected for provincial teams from first-class to under-13.

This is a heartening growth. If this rate of selection-on-merit continues then soon nearly half the members of all teams from provincial A to under-13 will have come from the development ranks - all candidates to play for their country at all levels.

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A REPLY TO ALI BACHER by Dr Douglas Booth.

Ali Bacher asks for patience and faith in his pedestrian, stock defence of the South African United Cricket BoardUs development program. Black cricketers, he comfortingly reassures the world, will graduate into the national squad. And even Sir Clive (Walcott, chairman of the International Cricket Council) thinks so!

Bacher ignores every point raised in our critique. His reply reads like, and probably is, a standard memo to an international glossy magazine.

Inadvertently, however, the memo raises two critical questions. Why did Bacher`s Cricket Union take 15 years to unite with the Cricket Board and launch a Tconcerted national development programU? And how, precisely, will cricket transform South AfricaUs political dispensation? The long wait came because the racist Cricket Union rejected the hand of black friendship - twice. Cricket amalgamated, briefly, in 1977 after white administrators promised blacks equal playing opportunities and selection based on merit for provincial and national players. It was a ploy to short circuit the boycott but the Union would not countenance mixed sports clubs. The Union subsequently turned to rebel cricket and, buoyed by that success, scorned black cricket.

In 1989 black sports leaders begged the Cricket Union to cancel its proposed English rebel tour and reconsider unification with black cricket. Bacher rejected the overture. Mass black protests forced the Cricket Union to cancel the tour just three weeks after it commenced. Bacher asserts that cricket has spread goodwill and opportunities in South Africa. It is a hackneyed claim. No one, philosophers, sociologists, and psychologists in- cluded, has ever satisfactorily explained the mechanism by which sport can unite and integrate divided societies.

Patience and faith are of course the perfect ingredients for South Africa`s future, sporting and otherwise. They always deliver, in the fullness of time.