Do Mark Boucher’s players see him as striving to ensure respect for all? Or do they see someone who has been party to racism?
Telford Vice | Cape Town
THE rhino in South Africa’s dressingroom is invisible and intangible, but oppressively present. It is the seriousness that has descended on a game that is looking its past in the eye, and not liking what it sees. Will that weigh on performance in the white-ball series against Sri Lanka in Colombo that start on Thursday? How could it not?
Testimony at the Social Justice and Nation-building (SJN) hearings has laid bare to the world what South Africans have always known: cricket has been as ravaged by racism as everything else in the country. That is changing in the dressingroom, where difficult but constructive conversations are being had. But, with major figures from the stained past still involved at a high level, the issue couldn’t be more relevant now.
Mark Boucher’s players only need look at him to be reminded that he has been implicated at the SJN. Boucher didn’t create the culture that caused all the trouble — Paul Adams, a prominent victim of the abuse, played 18 games for South Africa before Boucher made his debut — but he also didn’t help dismantle it. Boucher has apologised in his submission to the SJN, sought to talk personally with the people he wronged, and been open and honest with his current players about his previous behaviour. South Africa’s improving relationship with issues of race and racism would be impossible without his buy-in and support.
But when his players see him across the dressingroom do they recognise someone invested in striving to ensure the divisive ugliness of the past is replaced by respect for all? Or do they see someone who has been accused of being party to racism?
That’s an unfair burden to put on a team that has only recently turned a corner on the field. Of their last 18 series across the formats, starting with the 2019 World Cup, South Africa have won only five. All of those victories have been achieved under Boucher, who was appointed in December 2019. His team have suffered eight series defeats, but have not lost any of their last four rubbers.
They will have their work cut out trying to keep the unbeaten streak going in the ODIs against the Lankans, what with Quinton de Kock rested, David Miller injured and Lungi Ngidi opting out for undisclosed personal reasons. On top of that, Enoch Nkwe, also part of the struggles and successes of the Boucher era, has resigned as assistant coach for reasons that have yet to be fully explained. Boucher is a doer and Nkwe a thinker. That contrast could have been the basis for a good working relationship, but it seems it caused them to drift apart.
There’s another rhino in South Africa’s dressingroom, and it comes with a happier story attached. It’s in Dwaine Pretorius’ kitbag and it plays a vital role in video calls between him and his son, four-year-old Hanlu. “When I’m away he doesn’t want to speak to me, because he starts missing me too much,” Pretorius said in an audio file released by CSA. “So I chat to him through the rhino. Otherwise I don’t get his attention — he doesn’t necessarily want to talk to me, because I’m far away. That’s how we deal with it.”
Pretorius said Hanlu had been given the toy by hotel staff in the UK when the family was together before the 2019 World Cup. Hanlu’s father has since had more time at home than might have been the case. He last played for South Africa in February because of a broken rib and Covid-19, which conspired to make him miss the team’s last 20 matches. “It feels like years and years but it’s only been a few months,” Pretorius said of his enforced absence.
The gnarly allrounder’s return should help offset the effect of South Africa having to make do without De Kock, Miller and Ngidi — who will all be back for the T20Is — but lockdown rules have soured the sweetness for Pretorius: “The most disappointing thing is that we can’t go see countries like Sri Lanka. I’ve always wanted to come here. We had a security officer at the 2013 Champions Trophy who was from Sri Lanka. He said, ‘It’s a beautiful country, you’ve got to come see it.’ Obviously we can’t do that.”
Even so, he had made acquaintance with the island’s infamous humidity: “In South Africa, one bottle of water in a training session would be fine. Today, I think most of the guys got through four.”
When players drop their guard as professionals and allow themselves to be human, as Pretorius did, we are reminded who plays cricket — not cricketers but people. And people will get it wrong, sometimes seriously. That means consequences. What they should be in Boucher’s case is unclear. He has kept his job, but he may not want it if the unhappiness at his presence keeps growing.
What matters is whether he, his employers and the broader public feel he has a place in a game where, when his and Adams’ children — and Hanlu Pretorius — are old enough to want to play for South Africa, the only rhinos in the dressingroom are in mothers’ and fathers’ kitbags.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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