Mark Boucher’s SJN submission “displays an alarming and concerning reality that he does not comprehend South Africa’s apartheid, discriminatory and racist history”.
Telford Vice | Cape Town
IN the annals of South African cricket, Graeme Smith, Mark Boucher and AB de Villiers are usually held up as heroes. On Wednesday they were cast among the villains in chief of the game’s past and present struggles to overcome racism.
The three former players, all of them major figures in the world game, were damned in the report produced by the Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) project, the independent investigation established by CSA to probe allegations of historical racial wrongs. The document was produced on the basis of testimony gathered from affidavits and in 35 days of hearings that started on July 5. The process took five months — it was originally slated to last three months — and, CSA said on Wednesday, cost the equivalent of USD463,000, up from the budgeted USD309,000.
Of the three, De Villiers can breathe easiest because he is not dependent on South African cricket for a living or anything else. But that’s not the case for Smith, CSA’s director of cricket, and Boucher, the men’s national team head coach.
A CSA statement that accompanied the release of the 235-page SJN report did not say what action, if any, should be taken against Smith and Boucher. Also not known is whether those implicated are talking to their lawyers. The statement didn’t make clear whether CSA accepted the SJN’s findings. Neither did the report offer concrete recommendations beyond saying the office of the transformation ombud, in this case filled by senior advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, should be made permanent. That said, CSA would surely not want plenty of publicly expressed pain — the hearings were streamed live online — and months of hard work and significant expenditure to amount to nothing.
Smith was South Africa’s captain when Boucher’s career was ended by an eye injury in Taunton in July 2012. Thami Tsolekile, who had played three tests against India in November 2004, was the heir apparent as a CSA contracted player. But the wicketkeeper’s position went to De Villiers, who had kept in only three of his 74 Tests at that point. Quinton de Kock succeeded De Villiers. In both instances, a case could be made that the balance of the team was bolstered by their selection. But Tsolekile was denied his opportunity. He never played for South Africa again, and his career ended unhappily when he was one of the seven players who confessed to planning to fix during the 2015 franchise T20 competition.
“It is hard to exclude Mr Tsolekile’s race as having been the main reason why he did not succeed in the Proteas,” the report says. “CSA, Mr Graeme Smith and some selectors at the time really failed Mr Tsolekile and many black players of his time in many ways.”
In the most explosive testimony at the hearings, Paul Adams said he had been called “brown shit” by his teammates in a dressing room song. Among those players was Boucher, who in a 14-page affidavit to the SJN admitted his guilt, apologised and said he had also been saddled with a racial nickname. The report says Boucher showed “a lack of sensitivity and understanding of the racist undertones” of his comments. “Because of the history of this country, the gravity of calling people nicknames with racial connotations will not weigh the same for black people. It is disappointing that Mr Boucher seems to not appreciate this salient common understanding.” Boucher’s apology was “buttressed by an excuse that the comments he made were within a team setting as if racism can be excused if done within a team setting”. Boucher’s submission “display[s] an alarming and concerning reality that [he does] not comprehend the South African apartheid/discriminatory and racist history”.
De Villiers was denounced for his insistence that Dean Elgar and not Khaya Zondo take the place of the injured JP Duminy for the deciding match of an ODI series in India in October 2015. Zondo had been included in the XI, but was removed after De Villiers complained to CSA and the selectors. The report said he had done so “just to ensure that a black player was not placed in a position which he deemed as requiring greater experience” and that, “The only reasonable conclusion is that Mr De Villiers unfairly discriminated against Mr Zondo on racial grounds.”
Smith, Boucher and De Villiers made submissions to the SJN, and on Wednesday after the report was released De Villiers said, through Edward Griffiths, his agent: “I have wholly supported the aims of Cricket South Africa’s Social Justice and Nation Building process, to ensure equal opportunities in our game. However, throughout my career, I expressed honest cricketing opinions only ever based on what I believed was best for the team, never based on anyone’s race. That’s the fact.”
Smith and Boucher will have to tread more carefully. So far, they have said nothing.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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