After the Proteas’ phenomenal victory against India, we are told performance doesn’t matter as our best talent gets thrown to swine
The Indian national cricket team are back home, licking their wounds and wondering what hit them after they were soundly beaten by the Proteas recently.
Dismissed as no-hopers, the Proteas humbled the cocky Indians who thought they only had to show up for the hosts to fold like a deck of cards. Instead they were sent packing, with their tails between their legs.
The victory was hailed by some as the Proteas’ biggest triumph of the past 30 years. In the excitement of the moment, people tend to exaggerate.
I can think of the Proteas winning the mace from England at Lords, and simultaneously becoming the first team in the world to be No 1 in all three formats.
But the triumph over India was all the more remarkable not only because the team is still in a rebuilding phase, but because the empty suits at Cricket SA seemed determined to stuff it up.
They were almost straining at the leash to fulfil their mandate, which seems to be to get rid of director of cricket Graeme Smith and coach Mark Boucher. They had their knives out for the twosome, and nothing was going to stand in their way, not even an important cricket tour.
Having decided on the sentence — dismissal — the Black Lives Matter controversy provided a veneer, in lieu of evidence, to convict.
They found the right man for the job in advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza. He’s accustomed to fishing in such waters. It doesn’t seem to matter that Ntsebeza says his findings are “tentative”. Anything will do.
So, on the eve of the Indian tour, when everybody in cricket should have been focused on the job at hand, the board announced that Boucher was to face a disciplinary hearing.
It’s like sending a general into battle with a bullet in his back, inflicted by his own side. The announcement proved to be good timing.
They couldn’t wait until the end of the tour. It was almost as if they wanted to humiliate the guy
The Proteas were hopelessly outgunned in the first Test. It may be the bulldog spirit instilled by the coach that they bounced back to win the series. The team was in the middle of the ODI series — and winning — when again the board made an unwelcome intervention, presenting Boucher with the charges.
They couldn’t wait until the end of the tour. It was almost as if they wanted to humiliate the guy. They’re so desperate to get rid of him that they didn’t mind hanging the dirty linen for the visitors to goggle. Winning the series almost became secondary to what they wanted to achieve.
One of the charges against Boucher is that he racially abused his former colleague Paul Adams. Racism is a serious offence. Anyone brought up in this country should be alive to that fact. But one wonders why Adams kept such a searing experience to himself for more than 20 years.
Boucher is obviously the alleged perpetrator, but this may be a sticky wicket for CSA as well. It is the responsibility of the employer to create a harmonious working environment. If Adams reported the incident at the time and CSA had failed to act, then CSA too should be in the dock. And if Boucher is a racist as alleged, why did CSA give him the job as coach in the first place?
The other contentious issue is how Boucher handled the Black Lives Matter controversy. CSA will have to prove that it had laid down ground rules on how this matter should be handled, and that Boucher violated such procedures. A coach’s job is to produce a winning team, not to be a political strategist.
In fact, it’s the board that’s been remiss on this issue. On the Proteas tour to the Caribbean last year, it was embarrassing to watch as some players knelt while others stood before every game. And these players were supposed to play as a team. The same thing happened in Ireland. It was clear that no clear guidance had been given on how this matter should be handled.
It was only on the eve of the Proteas’ T20 World Cup match against the West Indies that the board instructed the team to take the knee, a decision that drove a sulking Quinton de Kock to refuse to play. I’m sure the incident contributed in no small measure to De Kock’s decision to retire from Test cricket, a pity because he’s such a prodigious talent.
Boucher’s critics keep moving the goalposts. First, they claimed he wasn’t qualified for the job, despite winning five domestic titles with the Titans. But after the victory against India, we are now apparently told that performance doesn’t matter. It matters a great deal to me.
I want a winning team. I don’t care in the slightest what Rassie Erasmus’s politics are, but I’m hugely proud of how, against all odds, he inspired a group of fine young men to claim the biggest prize in world rugby. The thousands who lined the streets to welcome the Springboks would agree.
Smith’s transgression, among others, is apparently that he employed Boucher as coach. For that cardinal sin he, too, should therefore be out on his ear. I don’t know how you convict somebody for doing his job. I'd wager the board would not be able to find a more qualified candidate.
As a 22-year-old, Smith dragged the Proteas from the ignominy of the 2003 World Cup debacle to the pinnacle as the No 1 team in the world in all formats. He’s by far the most successful captain of the modern era, and you can throw the likes of Ricky Ponting and Steve Waugh into the bargain.
This harassment has nothing to do with cricket. It’s a political hatchet job.
The reason the country is in such a mess is because, in just about every endeavour, we’ve shunted aside those with skill, and given crucial positions and responsibilities to people who don’t know their arses from their elbows.
We throw to swine the kind of talent other countries would kill for.
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