Wanderers at war

Johnson Mafa is a workhorse. He has been playing first-class cricket for the past 11 years. In his 51 matches, he has taken 159 wickets at a respectable average of 28.01. He plies his trade in the South African amateur league, but occasionally gets called up to the Lions' franchise team. Most of the time it's when one of the frontline bowlers is injured. They call on Mafa because he is reliable, has a decent economy-rate and is still fearsome even at 31 years old.

In fact, as recently as December last year he was showing his class when he played against the Eagles and helped dismantle their batting line-up with an impressive 3 for 22. At this year's annual Cricket South Africa awards dinner he was named the Provincial Amateur Cricketer of the Year. Despite the accolades and over a decade of service for his province, he has never been awarded a franchise contract.

Instead the Gauteng Cricket Board (GCB) chose to re-contract Friedel de Wet (168 wickets in 40 first-class matches at 22.38), Heinrich le Roux (69 wickets in 26 first-class matches at 24.05) and Craig Alexander (89 wickets in 30 first-class matches at 32.93). While these bowlers, with the exception of Alexander, appear to have better records than Mafa, perhaps if Mafa was ever under the microscope of a first-team coach, he would be the one with the more impressive returns. Perhaps it's just easier not to contract him, since "Baba," as he is affectionately known, isn't going anywhere - no other franchise has shown in an interest in him and at his age the possibility they will seems unlikely. With Mafa always around, the GCB can continue to call on him when they need to, which gives them the luxury of another bowler on contract - a bowler from another province, whom they have managed to lure with the money they're not spending on Mafa.

And that's precisely what the Concerned Cricket Fraternity of the GCB is so angry about.

Six months ago the organisation, consisting of clubs, ex-cricketers, cricket administrators and community representatives, convened to discuss the dire state of Gauteng cricket. This week it was reported that 15 black cricket clubs threatened to walk out of the GCB. The mass exodus of clubs will, in all likelihood, not occur, as confirmed by the Fraternity's spokesperson Hussein Manack, but the association is serious about inciting change in their union.

They have submitted a letter to CSA and the sports minister asking for assistance in "ensuring that the GCB does not continue to frustrate the efforts of young cricketers, black and white, to follow their dreams of enjoying and playing cricket at the highest level, to stifle the attempts of cricket clubs to take the game to the people and to hamper transformation at all levels".

The most serious of those allegations is the GCB's alleged failure to develop players of colour - an issue most in South African cricket believed had been sorted out. Of the GCB's 16 contracted players, six are of colour. That's in keeping with franchise standards in the country - the Titans and Eagles have the same number of black players, while the Dolphins, Cobras and Warriors have seven apiece. The difference is that not one of Gauteng's six players of colour comes from the province itself.

The GCB has issued contracts to either local white players or black imports from other provinces. The colour controversy seeps into club cricket as well, with the Fraternity highlighting that of the 16 premier league clubs, only four are considered black clubs.

Beyond the boundary things are not much different: although the GCB's constitution calls for a 50-50 representation on the board, only four of the 11 board members are black, and of the seven administrators of the Lions team, only one is black.

The Fraternity's aim is not simply to number-crunch but to use the statistics as evidence to force the GCB to transform. Alan Kourie, CEO of the GCB, says he has no knowledge of the Fraternity's complaints or documents and "has no idea what they are talking about". Surely, if their desire to cause change was so great, they would start by taking their grievances to the CEO and President of the Union?

"We have been dealing with the problem for the past 15 years," said Manack. "In 2002, at the national cricket indaba [meeting] in Kievietskroon, the GCB made a commitment to transformation. But later that year, a task team appointed by the then Minister of Sport [Ngconde Balfour] found the GCB to be the least compliant of all provinces with regards to transformation. In August 2005 we took up the issue again, and that was accompanied by an exodus of black board members."

So, if they're being ignored, why doesn't the Fraternity and its allies elect a new president to the board? "The premier league clubs hold a greater weight of the vote, and since there are 12 white clubs, the total white vote at the board amounts to about 61%," explained Manack, who added he hoped cricket's governing body would step in. "We're asking CSA's transformation monitoring committee to intervene."

It seems a little too convenient that these accusations have been made at a time when the GCB is at loggerheads with CSA. Manack insists that the Fraternity's complaints are in no way related to the GCB's other problems and dismissed all speculation that the Fraternity was hoping to kick their union when it was down. "We don't want to bring the issue of the IPL into this and we haven't thought about forming our own union or operating separately; we just want to fix Gauteng cricket," he said.

Maybe the Fraternity thought that since CSA has the power to take international matches away from the GCB, it also has the power to intervene in other matters. Or maybe they just wanted to remind South Africans that the transformation battle has not been won and that for every Makhaya Ntini there's a good few Johnson Mafas being dumped by the wayside.