Cricket SA aims for real change

CRICKET SA (CSA) has admitted that it ‘‘might have been policy compliant without achieving real transformation” ahead of its indaba on the subject taking place in Johannesburg this weekend.

Just five of the 81 players who have represented SA in Tests since unity in 1991 are black Africans, who make up 79.2% of the population.

Sixty-one of the 81 have been whites, who account for 9.6% of South Africans.

Other alarming truths are that only two black Africans played in 80% of their franchise’s games last season, and that CSA last held a transformation indaba 11 years ago.

But the recognition that cricket in SA needs to wake up and smell the demographics should be welcomed.

“We have always believed in doing the right thing, with transformation being a strategic imperative to not only redress the past but also to ensure we can continue to grow the necessary capability to be world leaders,” CSA president Chris Nenzani said in a media release yesterday.

“We should remind ourselves that it is also a constitutional imperative and we owe it to all the people of our country to make sure that the playing field is level for everyone. In the past we might have been policy compliant without achieving real transformation, and the time has arrived for that to change.”

The indaba has been subtitled “time to do the right thing”.

What that means will be examined across seven areas: governance, the procurement of goods and services and the appointment of staff, professional cricket, amateur cricket, funding, transformation legacy and history, and the selection of teams and appointment of officials.

Missing from that agenda is how CSA will go about making white South Africans understand that they have no greater ownership over the game than other race groups.

They could start by upgrading township venues to international standard, and staging at least some of SA’s games there.

CSA’s CE since August 1, Haroon Lorgat, was quoted as saying he had been “impressed with the readiness for accelerated change that I have sensed from engagement with key functionaries such as the franchise chief executives and the coaches at all levels”.

But it will take more than that to darken what remains a largely white game at the higher levels.

“Unless we get our hearts into it, transformation will remain an academic game,” Lorgat said.