UCB celebrates 10th birthday

The United Cricket Board of South Africa celebrates its 10th anniversary on Friday, June 29.

The anniversary coincides with the UCB Indaba to be held at KwaMaritane in the Pilanesberg this weekend, to which all cricket stakeholders - including all UCB staff - have been invited.

The purpose of the Indaba is to reflect on the transformation process since 1991, and in particular since the National Vision Conference in 1998. Delegates will assess and audit the progress of transformation and map out strategies for a common way forward.

The United Cricket Board of South Africa was born at 11am on Saturday 29 June 1991 and South African cricket was admitted to the ICC fold 11 days later as the sport showed how unity could be achieved in the most divided of nations.

The road towards unity was a long and hard one, characterized by acrimonious meetings between former enemies focused on healing wounds and burying hatchets. But eventually the South African Cricket Board and the South African Cricket Union merged with a single goal of ensuring cricket would represent all South Africans.

"I think the UCB has done well since its birth and the teams that have represented us have done our country proud. I look forward to the party on Friday night as well as to the Indaba, in which we can really assess how far we have come and look ahead to where we are going," said UCB CEO Gerald Majola.

The anniversary of the birth of the UCB will be celebrated with a traditional dinner around the boma at KwaMaritane on Friday night, followed by a weekend of workshops to assess the present and to design a strategy for the future.