The stink of South Africa’s cricket culture

“There are so many serious issues that confront our sport at the moment that it will take extraordinary measures to save it from total collapse.” - Solomon Pango, former CSA board member

TELFORD VICE | Cape Town

ALL cricket teams have cultures. They just don’t talk about them. Because that involves thinking about their feelings. And cricketers, as we all know, don’t have feelings. Like fish.

So it’s been up to opponents to define teams’ cultures. Australia? Swaggering ball-tamperers who don’t always play as good a game as they talk. England? Chronic over-thinkers with a filthy habit of stealing players from other countries. India? Nouveau riche types who can’t imagine not being the most important people in the game.

South Africa? Crippled by under-achievement, particularly in the white-ball formats. As with the examples above, that analysis is bluntly simplistic. Why they tend not to perform to their potential is a question that could keep us talking for far longer than the four days South Africa’s men’s high performance squad — including most of the 16 nationally contracted players — spent in a culture camp in Skukuza last week.

The short answer is there is so much going on off the fields that South Africa’s teams play on that it is impossible for them to keep their eye on the ball as solidly as the opposition are, comparatively, free to do.

The past weeks have been a case in point, what with several former players alleging unfair and racist treatment in hysterical tones. Perhaps that’s what happens when people who have been hard done by and not been listened to for too long finally get their chance to speak. Perhaps they are not telling the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Perhaps we’ll never know.

While that has lurched on and on, Cricket South Africa (CSA) have been a burning house falling off a cliff. First there was another slew of resignations. Then an increasingly heated skirmish on Twitter between Alviro Petersen and Omphile Ramela, the president of the South African Cricketers’ Association, about the 2015 fixing scandal, in which Petersen was one of seven players banned. Eugenia Kula-Ameyaw, one of CSA’s independent directors, waded into the fray on Tuesday with: “I’m clear I serve a God of Mercy, even prison in SA is called a CORRECTIONAL services Not DESTRUCTION services. Even prison for worse criminals there is a parole. That’s my personal view.”

As chair of CSA’s transformation committee, Kula-Ameyaw has assumed for herself the loudest voice in matters of social justice. Yet she was appointed, in May, under the cloud of, as an Estate Agency Affairs Board official, allegedly misusing taxpayers’ money on a trip to Ghana in March 2018 that was worth R90,000, or USD7,600 at the prevailing exchange rate. The resultant disciplinary proceedings against her superior cost the equivalent of USD24,000.

It has emerged that one of the candidates for a position on CSA’s board at the annual meeting on September 5, Border provincial president Simphiwe Ndzundzu, is under investigation after being accused of breaking into a house and assaulting a man, his sister and his frail, elderly mother.

One of the four suits running for CSA president, Eastern Province’s Donovan May, was quoted as saying in December: “I am in full support of the board. I find nothing wrong with the board at all and I actually think that they have been doing a good job.” And that even as sponsors were demanding the resignation of the entire board. Or for president Chris Nenzani and vice-president Beresford Williams to go. Nenzani finally got the message and quit on August 15. Williams? He’s running for president, of course.

A letter addressed to Williams — who is currently the acting president — his board, the presidents of the provincial affiliates and CSA’s acting chief executive, Kugandrie Govender, has called for next week’s elections to be cancelled and for an interim board to be put in place. It was written by Solomon Pango, once a board member. Among the listed supporters of the proposal were Ray Mali, a former ICC and CSA president.

“We are extremely concerned about the damage that is being done to cricket through the numerous issues that seem to plague our sport,” Pango wrote. “There are so many serious issues that confront our sport at the moment that it will take extraordinary measures to save it from total collapse.”

If there is a silver lining in these billowing dark clouds, it is the hope that the forensic investigation into CSA’s suspended chief executive, Thabang Moroe, exposes enough wrongdoing by him and his cronies to spark a revolution for good. But that chance is fast receding, what with, Cricbuzz has learnt, legal opinion having been brandished at a meeting on Monday preventing, for now, the members council — which has authority over the board — being given access to the report from the investigation.

Who needs a pandemic to tip the cricket industry over the edge when CSA are eminently capable of catastrophic self-harm? If you’re a player trying to make your way in this shambles what else could possibly be at the top of the agenda at a culture camp?

Of course, a release on Tuesday tried to paint a more positive picture: “The camp was aimed at bringing together players as well as the coaching and support staff of the national and high performance teams to align on objectives and plot the road ahead with a new cricket season not too far from beginning. After vigorous, open and honest conversations and consultation … the squad arrived at a 100% synergised approach.”

Values were identified as, “Belonging: The team needed to ensure it firmed up and left no room for misunderstanding in the inclusivity of its environment. It is a platform where everyone can be themselves and be an equal member within the team space”; “Empathy: Every team member must be able to freely share how they feel, and individuals must be willing to ‘take a walk in another member’s shoes’ and listen with the intention to understand and not respond”; and “Respect: Team members will respect themselves, they will have respect for others, for the environment and the badge. The Proteas are honoured to and responsible for representing the people of South Africa everywhere they go, both on and off the field.” The “rules of engagement” are that, “Every member of the team must be free to be themselves without fear of judgement. Everyone is of equal importance to the system.”

In an audio file, team manager Khomotso Volvo Masubelele said: “The camp demonstrated that regular conversations and prioritising the soft skills work is critical to the team as it for on-field strategies. The players have demonstrated the capacity to learn, to have hard conversations and how to prioritise and to listen to understand but not to respond.

“They have learned to move away from arguing their way through conversations to feeling their way in each conversation that they have by using concepts of storytelling, guided conversation and first-person narrative. And in that way we are able to move the conversation into fertile soil in which deep reflection and action can emerge.

“We went from addressing issues to engaging people, from contention to conversation, from moving against to moving with as a collective. And it highlighted the need for education. And showed us that it doesn’t matter at what level guys come into the environment, there is importance in touching base with everybody. Just to make sure the awareness is there in terms of what it means for them to be Proteas.

“And highlighting the importance to listen, understand and acknowledge. That brought us to a point where we can start looking into a performance model, that the teams feels that they are part of, they own, it resonates with them, a model that can outlive them and be there for future generations of Proteas.”

There was more where that came from, all of it good, considered and constructive. And none of it will mean a thing if the culture of CSA itself isn’t remade from scratch. Already South African cricket is blighted by racists, fixers and dishonest malcontents, and we don’t know how bad the stink will get. It’s the smell of a fish rotting from the head.

First published by Cricbuzz.