Rocky Road to Equal Opportunity

Prescribed Squad Composition a part of Life

    Imagine if English cricket’s ‘class-divide’ continued to widen to such an extent that intervention was required to ensure it remained a game as accessible to the boys and girls educated at government schools rather than fee-paying, private schools.

    England’s private school system has a huge and obvious advantage over state schools with their acres of green grass, excellent practise facilities and the ability to pay for the best, most highly qualified coaches. Many of the government schools were denuded of their playing fields in the 1980s and 1990s when they were sold off to developers who built housing estates and supermarkets.

    It has led to a scenario in which the first-class counties and England teams are comprised increasingly of ‘posh’ boys and girls – unless the talented ones are given scholarships and moved to the posh schools – which happens quite a lot.

    Imagine that the ECB formed (another) committee which recommended that a certain number of places in age-group squads and starting XIs were reserved for kids from parents who couldn’t afford expensive education. Perhaps even specified roles, like batting in the top six. Would there be an outcry? Of course. And who would it come from, the majority or the minority?

    There is a cavernous difference in the history of South Africa and England, but mostly because prejudice was legislated in the former. English cricket, and society, is littered with unwritten bias. Cricket South Africa has been attempting to ‘right the wrongs of the past’ for over 20 years. Whether doing so pre-emptively can be successful remains to be proved. 

    The 2023 Khaya Majola week for under-19 provincial teams gets underway in Makhanda (formerly Grahamstown) on December 16 with the same opportunities/restrictions it has offered since 2017. Each squad of 13 players shall contain a minimum of seven Players of Colour and no player shall be omitted for more than one of the five matches they play. A minimum of three non-white players must be Black African.

    In addition, two Black African players must bat in the top six. Correction – two Black African batters must be top six players. And therein lies one of the many problem with addressing injustices with imposed solutions. It is human nature to tackle unwanted or unwelcome bylaws by circumventing them, finding loopholes.

    For the first two or three years of these regulations age-group teams would simply place a talented, Black African bowler at number five or six in the batting order to tick the box. We’re not talking exclusively racism, here. For the last 15 years the considerable majority of coaches and selectors have been black. But whatever their heritage, a coach’s instinct is to do whatever is necessary to win. If that meant playing a specialist, white batter at seven and a black fast bowler at six, they did it.

    “Malicious compliance” is what CSA’s Pathways Manager, Eddie Khoza, calls it. It’s a wonderful term for unwonderful behaviour . In recent years he and his team have devoted more time to remedying this scenario. Now, they make certain they have a player’s record at junior and school level rendering sudden promotion into the top six as unacceptable.

   “We are also not judging players’ success by averages,” Khoza tells me. “If a player is moved around the order without stability, their numbers will not be a fair reflection. We look at the impact they make on a game having stressed the importance of role clarity to coaches and selectors. The emphasis has to be on talent and not circumstances.”

    To put it bluntly, much of the first 15 years of South African cricket’s racial targets was about meeting ‘quotas’ in the most negative way imaginable. How to tick the boxes while still picking the players you want. How to ‘hide’ players. That, thankfully, is now changing. But ‘negative compliance’ still exists because there are still many more talented white kids from privileged backgrounds who rise to prominence much sooner than talented black kids who never had the opportunity to play the game meaningfully at school. Unless they had a scholarship.  

    The paucity of international Black African batters is an embarrassment to Cricket South Africa, especially given the R1 billion+ spent on development in the last 20 years. The current stipulations for under19-teams are an understandable reaction to remedying the situation. It is forcing a delicate and complex socio-economic situation. It places the onus on selectors when one of the core issues may be the cost of bats and pads. Young cricket lovers will always be able to afford to bowl before they can bat.  

    The essence of elite sport is about the belief, however unrealistic, that ability and achievement will be sufficient to rise to the top. In truth it also requires luck and, often, good connections, but at the heart of it is the conviction that success will trump all.

    By legislating against that, with the very best intentions, Cricket South Africa accepts that its primary target is not to win. There may be just a 1% difference between doing the right thing and focussing on winning, but elite sports are often decided by such margins.

    CSA Director of Cricket, Enoch Nkwe, said last week that it was the organisations wish, eventually, to do away with quotas and targets altogether. Even if South Africa does overcome its apartheid ‘legacy’, which will take at least another 50 years, economics will ensure that, as in the rest of the world, equal opportunity, in any sport, in any country, won’t become a reality in the early years. It is a noble goal and pursuit, nonetheless.