CSA culture camp: Talking - not shouting - about a revolution

“It’s important to engage on some of the critical issues around the team elements that we feel need attention.” - Khomotso Volvo Masubelele, South Africa team manager

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

PERHAPS Cricket South Africa (CSA) should ensure the venue hosting their culture camp in Skukuza next week has an assortment of table shapes and more than enough rooms. Going by the shrilly expressed anger in the game in recent weeks, there’s little chance of some feeling comfortable enough with others to share a round table or even be in the same room.

But the camp’s saving grace could be that it will involve 32 current men’s players who are in the high performance squad along with South Africa’s team management — and not the former players and coaches who have hurled historical hurt into public discourse in the days after July 6. That’s when Lungi Ngidi, in answer to a question at a press conference, expressed his support for Black Lives Matter and hoped dressingroom discussions on the issue would ensue. It seems that opportunity is at hand.

A CSA release on Saturday said the camp, which will run from Tuesday to Saturday, would cover “the team identity”, “the team environment” and “team performance”. In an audio file that accompanied the release, South Africa team manager Khomotso Volvo Masubelele said: “It was very important for us, during the break for Covid-19, to get the guys to reconnect while our FTP was still getting sorted out, and there’s good, positive things that are coming forward that we might be getting back onto the field of play. We felt it was important for guys to come together … to engage on some of the critical issues around the team elements that we feel need attention.”

That and “models we want to put in place for the seasons to come … for the guys to be able to come with a blueprint that they will be able to own [and] understand; something that resonates with them and [that] can be clear from early on in the season so that when guys are going to get onto the field of play facing the first ball, they are clear in terms of what it is that’s needed of them”.

So far, so standard for cricket teams. But South Africa are not like other teams. Centuries of systemic racism has hard-wired prejudice into every aspect of the country’s society, and the official abolition of apartheid in 1994 has not done nearly enough to eradicate white privilege and the unfair treatment of black and brown South Africans.

Allegations of how cricket has treated the latter since South Africa’s re-admission to the international arena in 1991 have dominated the establishment media. Even important conversations about the coronavirus pandemic, an overarching existential threat that could wipe out the cricket industry itself, have been relegated to the wings.

There will doubtless be outrage if the culture camp does not feature the voices of those hard done by in the past. Especially as CSA director of cricket Graeme Smith, a favourite target of the disgruntled, will attend. Perhaps that would be no bad thing: without all the shouting maybe some sincere talking will have the chance to happen.

Ngidi probably didn’t realise the level of white unhappiness and black and brown support — followed by black and brown unhappiness — he would unleash. He is among the 32, which does not include Faf du Plessis because of the imminent birth of his and his wife Imari du Plessis’ second child, and Theunis de Bruyn, who is, a spokesperson said, “unavailable due to family reasons”.

It’s a pity Khaya Zondo, a black batter who was selected for an ODI against India in Mumbai in October 2015 and then controversially left out and replaced by the white Dean Elgar, is not one of the chosen. He could have given Ngidi, six years his junior, some context. They could have shared a room, even a table.

CSA culture camp attendees: Aiden Markram, Andile Phehlukwayo, Anrich Nortjé, Beuran Hendricks, Bjorn Fortuin, Daryn Dupavillon, David Miller, Dean Elgar, Dwaine Pretorius, George Linde, Glenton Stuurman, Heinrich Klaasen, Janneman Malan, Jon-Jon Smuts, Junior Dala, Kagiso Rabada, Keegan Petersen, Keshav Maharaj, Kyle Verryenne, Lungi Ngidi, Lutho Sipamla, Pieter Malan, Pite van Biljon, Quinton de Kock, Rassie van der Dussen, Reeza Hendricks, Rudi Second, Senuran Muthusamy, Sisanda Magala, Tabraiz Shamsi, Temba Bavuma, Zubayr Hamza.

First published by Cricbuzz.