Over the weekend the Dolphins – the Durban-based provincial cricket franchise – won the One-Day Cup, defeating Boland in Paarl by four wickets, reaching the target of 248 in the final over.
This came after the Dolphins had dispatched Pretoria’s Titans in the qualifier played in Durban last week.
However, the Dolphins should not have been in the playoffs in the first place. They only managed to make the playoffs because of a bizarre ruling by Cricket South Africa (CSA).
In a match last month, the Dolphins were thrashed by the Warriors. The Warriors won the match by 126 runs, giving them four points for a win as well as a bonus point due to the margin of victory. However, the Warriors were stripped of all five points subsequently, with the Dolphins being awarded four points, as if they had won the match, even though they were comprehensively thrashed. This saw the Warriors drop from third to fourth on the One-Day Cup table, with the Dolphins leapfrogging both the Warriors and Titans to be placed second.
Administrative conditions
The reason for the Warriors being stripped of the points was that the Gqeberha-based team had fallen foul of “administrative conditions” – CSA Newspeak for race quotas.
In the domestic game, sides are expected to play a minimum of six “players of colour” of which three must be black Africans. Teams are allowed to miss these targets if they are dealing with an injury or something similar, but cannot miss these targets for tactical or strategic reasons. In addition, if a team does play too few players of colour or black African players in a match, in a subsequent match they must play an additional player of the relevant race group, to make up for missing the quota.
What happened with the Warriors is that when the side arrived in Durban for their match, the pitch prepared at Kingsmead was one that would take some turn, so the Warriors decided to play an extra spinner. This spinner, a young man called Jason Raubenheimer, happens to be a coloured South African, but his inclusion saw the Warriors playing only two black Africans.
Effectively the Warriors were punished for playing too many coloured players.
For this were they not only stripped of points. They were also fined R500,000, believed to be the largest penalty ever levied in the South African game.
Cricket decision
The decision to punish the Warriors like this has caused consternation in some quarters. Speaking on CapeTalk, Omar Henry, the first player of colour to play for the Proteas, has argued that the Warriors shouldn’t be punished for making a cricket decision in a cricket match.
Furthermore, this stripping of points has had several effects, the primary one being that the Warriors missed out on the playoffs. In addition, the side is now in serious danger of being relegated to the second division of South Africa’s domestic cricket league system. For promotion and relegation, a team’s performance across all three formats is calculated – i.e. first-class (multi-day) cricket, fifty-over cricket, and twenty-over cricket. On the consolidated standings they are now at the bottom of the log (on the same number of points as Western Province), and now face the real possibility of being relegated.
When the Knights (Free State) were relegated, the province lost millions in sponsorship, with many players being poached by provinces in the first division. Being relegated has real and serious implications for large numbers of people.
In addition, CSA’s decision was only made after the round-robin portion of the One-Day Cup had been completed. The Warriors were all set to travel to Centurion to play the Titans, when CSA made its ruling, throwing plans into disarray. Who knows how the tournament would have gone if the Warriors had immediately been made aware of the decision to change the result of the game between them and the Dolphins.
Defining race
But it is not clear how CSA defines what race people are. I asked CSA’s corporate communications person how CSA defines people’s race – whether it is self-identification or what is used? I was told that the “team” would respond if they “wish to”. I followed up and said I was on a deadline and while the person was unfailingly polite my question was not answered.
The question remains – how can you penalise a team for having too many or too few people of a certain race if you cannot determine how these people are defined?
As it stands, it seems that self-identification is acceptable – if a player considers themselves black African then that is what they will be recorded as. It is not clear what would happen, were an opposing team to disagree with a person’s self-classification. Should a pencil now also be part of a cricketer’s kit bag?
This brings us to another issue which reveals the madness of South Africa’s continued race obsession. When a player is of mixed race (where a person has parents belonging to different race groups rather than being “coloured”), these players aren’t automatically classified as “coloured”. Rather, the player can apparently choose to self-identify – that is why Tony de Zorzi, the Proteas’ opening batter, who by name and appearance most South Africans would consider “coloured,” and has a white mother and black father, is counted as a “black African”.
It is not only at the professional level that teams are expected to have a certain number of players of colour. For club cricket, teams playing in their respective provinces’ premier leagues are expected to have at least two players of colour, one of which must be a black African. Amateur clubs and teams are now expected to also fit into CSA’s racial diktats.
Clumsy regulations
Of course, this is all not happening in a vacuum. These clumsy regulations are made because of the history of this country. In an ideal world these quotas would not exist. But we do not live in an ideal world.
But it must also be asked whether these kinds of rules are helpful and result in outcomes which CSA wants. If hard racial quotas are a reality, then perhaps coaches and teams should be given more flexibility. For example, the national side is also expected to meet certain racial quotas, but this is not a hard quota per game – rather an average is worked out over a season and across all formats. This would perhaps be a better way of dealing with the matter.
Are these hard quotas helpful? They arguably do more harm than good.
A number of players, ranging from Omar Henry (mentioned above) to Ashwell Prince and Makhaya Ntini, have pointed out how the quota system makes players of colour get doubted – not only by other players but by themselves.
But another question that must be asked is whether this is true “transformation”? Does ensuring that the Proteas or our various domestic sides have enough players of various races in each playing XI really change the opportunity of a budding young cricketer in Matatiele or Eldorado Park?
True transformation means that every person who wants to play the game of cricket would have the opportunity to do so, and have access to kit, grounds, and a club that offers the game, or they can attend a school where the game is played. The vast majority of people who play cricket (or any sport for that matter) will never play at a standard close to professional. But that doesn’t matter – sport is important also for sport’s sake.
[Image: https://cricket.co.za/senior-cricket/]
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This article was updated to clarify Tony de Zorzi’s heritage.