The Zimbabwe lesson

Zimbabweans waking up on a crisp Monday in July 2001, the day after Hamilton Masakadza had become the first black batsman to score a hundred for the country, might have expected their joy to be reflected in the morning's papers. Instead they were affronted by a headline that bristled with pent-up anger: "Masakadza proves racists wrong".

The headline was a precursor of things to come in Zimbabwe cricket. But it also represented an outpouring of frustration from a segment of the black community who felt that, for all of Zimbabwe Cricket Union's efforts to transform from its white base to a majority sport, players of colour were still being kept at arm's length.

Fifteen years on, this feeling has been rising on the other side of the Limpopo River, in South Africa. Last November, a group of black cricketers sent a letter to Cricket South Africa (CSA) saying that they were "sick and tired" of being included in national squads without being picked to play. Their frustrations have been echoed by Zimbabwe's interim coach Makhaya Ntini - who claims he was shut out of the coaching realm in South Africa because of race - and in newspaper columns that have questioned the appointment of Mark Boucher as Titans coach despite his absence of coaching experience.

For all of these issues, there are counterclaims. Those in favour of picking sides purely on merit might suggest that black players have not been quite good enough, even if they deserved their place in squads. Others might point to Ntini's lack of coaching qualifications, or the fact that he only expressed an interest in coaching in the Eastern Cape, a largely dysfunctional province. Some might say that personality is important - not every former international cricketer will make a good coach - and that this is the difference between Boucher walking into a franchise appointment ahead of Ntini or any of the other coaches in the domestic system.

But what is clear is a growing divide, an increasing polarisation in views where both sides only become more entrenched in their position with each passing incident. It is surely no coincidence that South Africa are experiencing this at a very similar time in their history to Zimbabwe - 20 years after attaining black majority rule. It would appear that this is the point where patience begins to run out, and where promises start to ring hollow.

The administration in Zimbabwe at least had better excuses to fall back on. The country spent its first decade building the game up on a completely amateur base and only became a Test nation in 1992. Thereafter there were visible attempts to spread the game, with the ZCU spending its own limited resources to install facilities in lower income black schools.

By contrast, South Africa has had the benefit of two decades of ICC Full Membership and far greater financial resources. Admittedly, CSA is operating in a much larger country, making it more reliant on the government to do the groundwork, but concerted and sustained attempts at establishing cricket in the townships or in black rural areas have largely been lacking. Even when private entities have got the ball rolling, they have received scant support from the federations. Now, with too few black cricketers developing into top-level players and time running out, CSA has been compelled to implement a "top-down" approach and install "targets" at national level.

While any racial selection policy is inherently unfair and regrettable, at least South Africa's players now have clarity. The absence of such a policy in Zimbabwe created even greater distrust among the white players, and ultimately led to the rebel walkout in 2004. "I said that you've got to actually tell people if there's a quota system in place," Heath Streak, who led the walkout, has said. "Because the young white guys are going to worry about whether they're doing the right thing by staying. At least if you do have a quota system and you say that we have to have three or four players of colour, then they know that they're fighting for seven positions or whatever it is."

On the face of it, the ZCU had done many things right in its bid to avert a full-blown crisis. In March 2001 they set up the Integration Task Force as part of "an aggressive campaign to eliminate racial discrimination within cricket at all levels". This was a response to several incidents, two of which affected Trevor Madondo, who had preceded Masakadza as Zimbabwe's first black specialist batsman.

In December 1999, during a one-day series against Sri Lanka, Madondo had arrived half- an-hour late for practice. His punishment was to be omitted from the squad for the remaining three matches, a hefty sanction that drew accusations of racism. The two judges tasked by the ZCU with investigating the matter ruled that "on the evidence ... heard it is not possible to conclude with conviction that Trevor Madondo was treated as he was, because of his race". Yet they had a word of caution, advising that "in the multiracial and multicultural diverse society that we live in, there is need for sensitivity in one's approach when dealing with issues which cross the cultural or racial divide". In short, they did not feel that Madondo benefited from an "even-handed approach".

A year later, in a rain-hit Test match in Wellington, Streak declared Zimbabwe's first innings with Madondo unbeaten on 74 - his highest Test score. The game was going nowhere - Zimbabwe declared on the final morning, still 147 runs in arrears. The decision not to give Madondo a crack at a hundred is still spoken of in some quarters as a slight on black cricket.

There were other signs of trouble. In a Test in Bulawayo a few months earlier, Guy Whittall withdrew from the side in protest after David Mutendera, a young fast bowler, became a late replacement for Craig Wishart, a batsman, due to perceived political interference. And in 2001, after a white batsman had made a century, Streak walked around a corner in the dressing room to find one of the selectors on the phone, lamenting the fact that they would now have to keep picking the white centurion.

The Task Force charged with addressing the growing divide had a wide range of cricket people from across the racial spectrum, and was facilitated by Dr Zackrison, an American consultant. The presence of an outsider with no prior knowledge of the situation or even the game of cricket raised the ire of the experienced white players, who also had little time for the process as a whole. One player refused to fill in a survey on racial attitudes in the game, but claims to have been lambasted for his opinions nonetheless when the community met to discuss the Task Force's findings. These included aggressive targets for everything from the number of black players in the national team to the racial make-up of the crowd, although they were genuinely targets whereas CSA's recommendations are quotas under another name.

Alistair Campbell, who believes the hard work done in the 1990s was about to bear fruit without political interference, says he walked out along with several other senior white players when the findings were presented. "More blacks need to play the game with the least possible reduction in personal and team performance," was the statement he remembers. "We sort of questioned that," he says. "You're saying that by bringing people into an organisation you're going downhill, but you just want damage limitation. That's what that statement says. I've had this out with some people, and said, 'Guys, I think you were advised poorly.'"

Because of the historic imbalance, there were barely any senior black players to present their side of the argument and the emerging generation was still too young to deal with such complex issues. Tatenda Taibu, who had become part of the Zimbabwe squad when still a teenager, barely recalls anything about the Task Force process. But he does remember a club match in Harare where an on-field racial slur by one of his team-mates led to an off-field "brawl" in the changing rooms after the game. He says he just walked out, along with his good friend and team-mate Stuart Matsikenyeri. "We had decided we weren't going to be distracted by things that wouldn't allow us to achieve what we wanted to achieve," he says. "Hamilton [Masakadza] saw that and started to do the same. So it was not something we put any mind to."

Unfortunately, their silence left the door open for others to speak for them. These were chaotic times in Zimbabwe as it spiralled into political and economic meltdown, and the racial tension in cricket allowed people with political connections and questionable intentions to infiltrate themselves into the game.

The Task Force's biggest challenge was coming up with a process and a pathway that all of these disparate parties could buy into. "My view on it is that it was necessary, that it should have happened earlier - not in a political sense but to try and change with the times and to embrace where the country was going," says Andy Pycroft, who spent many hours working on the Task Force. "But there was a certain element in the white community that didn't want it to happen, and there was a certain element in the black community that was prepared to ride over everything regardless, a sort of 'we don't care' attitude. And it was trying to marry the two and seek a common middle ground. It was very difficult."

This is the challenge facing South African cricket over the coming years. How do you promote one community without completely alienating another? If the South Africans are to maintain their competitive edge then they must retain enough white players, coaches and administrators with talent and experience that the game's value will not be eroded overnight. A glance across the border does not offer a blueprint on how this can be done, but there are some lessons that can be heeded. Above all, it is a reminder of the cost of failing to attain even a tenuous unity in such a delicate process.