Men make women see black

“If you bring women together and you give them one goal, greatness will happen.” – Suné Luus

Telford Vice | Cape Town

WHILE Faf du Plessis was holed up in a Karachi hotel room on Saturday his compatriots were taking on Pakistan in an ODI at Kingsmead. Not that they were dressed like a South Africa team. They were all in black, as if they were a New Zealand white-ball side. But their names gave their nationality away: Laura Wolvaardt, Mignon du Preez, Marizanne Kapp, Shabnim Ismail, et al.

Why the change from the usual green gear? Because of the evil men do, and an effort to combat it. “Black Day” is a CSA initiative to raise the alarm about gender-based violence (GBV), an epidemic in South Africa. The World Health Organisation says femicide — the murder of women and girls because of their gender, and almost always committed by men — accounts for the deaths of 12.1 out of every 100,000 women in the country every year. That’s more than four-and-a-half times the global average of 2.6, and it’s only one of the shocking statistics on the apparent addiction South African men have to GBV. Another is that a woman is murdered every three hours in this country. Still another that someone is raped or sexually assaulted in what Interpol calls “the rape capital of the world” every 25 seconds.

“From a male perspective it’s really important that we create awareness on this,” Du Plessis told an online press conference. “It’s something I don’t take lightly. It’s not just a women’s problem in our country. It’s an ‘us’ problem in South Africa. Especially as males, we need to be better. If you look at the stats on gender-based violence in South Africa it is insanely ridiculous. It’s one of the most important things in our country that we as males need to do better; that our country becomes more aware of what’s actually going on and how bad that situation is. I’ve had lots of conversations on this specific topic. I want to learn as much as I can. The more you speak about it the more your jaw drops because of what’s going on in South Africa. This is something we as the men’s team can get involved in on a much higher scale.”

Suné Luus, who captained South Africa on Saturday in the absence of the injured Dané van Niekerk, told an online press conference last week: “This is such a big day for us, to help educate the people of South Africa and whoever is watching all over the world. That we as the Proteas and CSA stand against this is an important message. We’re trying to help wherever we can and make a difference. If you bring women together and you give them one goal, greatness will happen. That’s the vision for Black Day.”

Women’s Criczone, an online magazine, quoted Mignon du Preez as saying: “We have an opportunity to speak up against GBV and we want to really break the silence about violence and abuse. We know it’s family, friends … mothers, daughters [who go] through this. We really want to encourage men out there to also stand up, have a voice and be gutsy to speak up about it as a very sensitive topic. We need to take the lead and be role models and set good standards for our kids and encourage them to continue to live a life of respecting women.”

A CSA release quoted Mary Makgaba, the chief executive of People Opposing Women Abuse, a non-governmental organisation, as saying: “A nation which undermines the rule of law and does not protect women and children from acts of domestic violence, sexual violence, emotional violence, financial violence, physical violence and femicide is not a winning nation.”

That a high profile man should speak on the subject is at once right and part of the problem. Du Plessis is correct to say men are central to eradicating this tendency among South Africans. Misogyny, driven by cultural and religious prejudices, is rampant in all communities and at all socio-economic levels of the country’s deeply patriarchal society. South Africa’s constitution enshrines equality, but the document has little impact on the daily reality of the citizens whose lives it purports to govern. So it is sensible to enlist men in the fight against a scourge of their own making.

But some will wonder whether men will only take the issue seriously if a man demands their attention. They will point to the violence of another kind meted out to Candice Warner at St George’s Park during Australia’s tour in March 2018 — when spectators wore masks depicting a former lover’s face to try and bait her spouse, David Warner — as evidence of dangerous attitudes and behaviours in South African cricket. If those men could so brazenly abuse a woman they had never met, what would make them not beat up, rape and murder the women and girls in their lives?

Questions like that are a long way from being asked, nevermind answered. But at least Du Plessis has joined the conversation.  

First published by Cricbuzz.

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The band plays on at the home of cricket

St George’s Park houses South Africa’s slowest pitch, but that doesn’t mean captains should load their XIs with spinners. 

TELFORD VICE in Port Elizabeth

WELCOME, Faf du Plessis and AN Others, to the home of cricket. In South Africa, at least. It was at St George’s Park in Port Elizabeth on two crazy days in March 1889 that a team who, despite their unbearable whiteness of being, had the gall to call themselves South Africa lost to a rag-tag side who, they later learnt to their bemusement, were billed as England in what has become acknowledged as the first Test played on the sharp tip of what was, for too long, shamefully caricatured as “the dark continent”.

So when Du Plessis talked up Newlands as “the home of cricket” before the second Test the other week, eyebrows yanked upward; particularly on the faces of those blessed with the flat vowels and rough attitude that come with hailing from the Eastern Cape. You could hear them thinking: “What? Newlands is ‘the home of cricket’? Is the poor bastard lost?”

When Du Plessis’ team were beaten in the shadow of the most referenced mountain in cricket, no-one had the gumption to ask whether he wanted the game to move house. Just as no-one thought to ask Joe Root, fresh from leading England to their first victory in a Newlands Test in 63 years, if he would prefer that cricket relocates to Cape Town. From Dubai: it hasn’t lived at Lord’s since 2005.

Doubtless Du Plessis and Root will have done their homework on St George’s Park before the third Test on Thursday. This is the country’s slowest pitch, but that doesn’t mean captains should load their XIs with spinners. You have to go a dozen entries down the list of the best performances in an innings in Port Elizabeth to find the first slow bowler, and nine quicks have taken more wickets in their careers here than the most successful spinner. On both counts that spinner is Hugh Tayfield, who racked up 154 wickets all told in the 1950s. Only four bowlers of whatever style had more victims overall in that decade. The next best South African was fast bowler Neil Adcock with 69: less than half Tayfield’s tally. Just five bowlers have snared 20 or more wickets in the 30 Tests played in Port Elizabeth — Allan Donald, Shaun Pollock, Kagiso Rabada, Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini. The same group plus Morné Morkel, Jacques Kallis and Vernon Philander have taken at least 20 on the faster, bouncier, seamier, swingier surface at Centurion, which has hosted five fewer Tests. From a South African perspective, St George’s Park is a spinner’s surface. In more objective terms, it’s a recognisably South African pitch. Except that it’s slower than the rest.

Of the grounds being used in this series, South Africa have their worst win/loss ratio here. It’s also where England have fared the best in this country on that score. South Africa haven’t won any of their four Port Elizabeth Tests against England since 1957. There’s that year again.  

Old hands at St George’s Park will tell captains to look up as much as down before they make their decision at the toss. Whatever the pitch looks like — even if it’s green it’s unlikely to be fast, or offer significant seam movement — they should note the wind. If it’s blowing from over the north-west corner of the ground it’s bringing dry air from inland: bat. If it’s gusting over the scoreboard, or 180 degrees in the other direction, it’s carrying moisture from the nearby Indian Ocean: field. Or at least consider that as a serious option.

To the north is the vast red-brick, green-roofed curving expanse of the Duckpond Pavilion. Its construction in the 1990s was fodder for allegations of poor building practices fuelled by dodgy money. Almost 30 years on, the award-winning edifice stands as solid as ever. The short spiral staircases either side of the sightscreen were uncovered until December 1995, when England played a Test at St George’s Park for the first time since the end of South Africa’s isolation in 1991. Can’t have that, England’s management said, and demanded that an already excessively wide white space be made wider and whiter still by the addition of opaque shields around the stairs.

The players, the parasites — who are sometimes called administrators — and the press are accommodated at the southern end of the ground. The teams’ balconies are uncomfortably close to the reporters watching their every off-field move. So Michael Atherton smashing the leg off a chair in reaction to his dismissal in that 1995 match didn’t go unnoticed. Neither did the disturbance caused by Shoaib Akhtar taking a bat to Mohammad Asif’s shins in the dressingroom in January 2007. Sitting in the pressbox, you would be forgiven for imagining you are close enough to the middle to reach out and tap a slip fielder on the shoulder to offer advice.

Grass banks stretch away to the east. It was here in March 2018 that poltroons wearing Sonny Bill Williams masks gathered in a malevolently misguided attempt to taunt David Warner by slut-shaming his wife, Candice Warner — who had a brief relationship with the rugby star before she met her husband. Two Cricket South Africa officials posed for photographs with the disguised dolts, and were suspended from their jobs as a consequence.

The ground’s heart beats most rhythmically in its north-western quarter. The brassy blare of the St George’s Park Band, an amalgamation of musicians drawn from several churches, is central to the grand pageant of Test cricket on the south-eastern edge of Africa. Some can’t stand the noise — admittedly it can dominate television audio — and umpires have been known to tell the band to pipe down. But the signature scene of a St George’s Park Test is the band riffing on the introductory bars of Ben E King’s “Stand By Me” for much of a session; usually after lunch or tea, and usually when South Africa are in the field. If you’ve watched enough cricket here it’s impossible not to remember Jonty Rhodes, at backward point, dancing to that unbreakable tune between deliveries. The band is behind him, the sun hangs low in the sky beyond, the planets are aligned, the universe is in sync, and the moment never ends.

If you’re a South African of a particular geography, that’s a picture of the truth — memory is nowhere near a rich enough descriptor — that confirms what you know already every time this circus rolls into town: Cricket’s coming home.

First published by Cricbuzz.

Canada leaves SA’s T20 plan dry

South Africans must be galled that a bunch of Canadians helped by Cricket West Indies, which is anything but an efficient, well-run organisation, seem set to pull off what CSA have so far failed to do.

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE in Lisbon

THE Global League T20 (GLT20) starts on June 28 and will involve many of the usual suspects — among them David Miller and Wayne Parnell — and the less usual — players like Rassie van der Dussen and Christiaan Jonker — and Tom Moody, Phil Simmons and Waqar Younis head up coaching staffs.

Even Chris Gayle, whose unabashed misogyny has cost him his gig in the Big Bash League, gets a game.

That hasn’t made nearly as many eyebrows shoot up as the fact that admitted ball-tamperers David Warner and Steve Smith will also be in action, nevermind that their offence is trifling compared to Gayle’s.

If that makes the cretins want to dust off their Candice Warner face masks and lurch to places like Newlands and St George’s Park, they should crawl back under their rocks.

The GLT20 is not the T20 Global League (T20GL) — the tournament that was supposed to catapult South African cricket into the brave, no longer so new world of the travelling filthy-rich short-format circus.

Instead it cost Haroon Lorgat his job as Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) chief executive and CSA itself R180-million in losses, and was postponed for a year and may never see the floodlights of day/night.

That said the two events are easily confused, not least because what was eventually billed as CSA’s T20GL started out being called the GLT20.

“GLT20 was the project name we used while finalising the name,” a source close to the process said on Wednesday.

“And then, having sat down as a group, and consulted with marketing experts, and taken into account what fans said, the name ‘T20 Global League’ resonated and presented itself as a more credible option than a gimmicky name.”

There is something endearing about a bunch of suits sitting around trying to ungimmick the unshakably gimmicky concept of a T20 league. 

But they would no doubt have done a double take to see something called the GLT20 take firm form, and more so because it will be played in Canada, land of ice-hockey, maple syrup and expats who have a thing for frozen wastes.

The Edmonton Royals, Montreal Tigers, Toronto Nationals, Vancouver Knights and Winnipeg Hawks will be joined be an as yet unnamed franchise of players drawn exclusively from the Caribbean: Cricket West Indies (CWI) are associates to the GLT20.

They will play 22 matches, all of them at the Maple Leaf Cricket Club, a dedicated cricket ground north of Toronto, culminating in the final on July 15.

“There is a robust club system [in Canada] and the game is being played in school,” tournament director Jason Harper told website Firstpost in May. “The clubs are growing day-by-day and there are over 15 000 registered cricketers.

“There is an opportunity for growth in the existing framework, and by adding GLT20 it should help growing interest for the game more in Canada.”

South Africans must be galled at the thought that a bunch of Canadians helped by CWI, which is anything but an efficient, well-run organisation, seem set to pull off what CSA have so far failed to do.

There is a mitigating factor in that one Canadian dollar will buy R9.90, but that pales next to the reality that a country where cricket is what baseball is in South Africa can gets its act together faster and with more certainty.

CSA are reportedly close to deciding whether to proceed with their plan to stage what can surely no longer be called the T20GL. They seem damned if they do and damned if they don’t.

South African administrators have earned, properly, a reputation for being able to get stuff done.

Get this done and that reputation won’t need burnishing for a long time.

Newlands crowd special, but not in a good way

“[The crowd] have got to be better than that when they come into the international arena to watch a game of two quality sides playing against each other.” – Darren Lehmann

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE at Newlands

THE boors are back in town. They can check out any time they like, but they can never leave — unless they are thrown out.

Several spectators earned exactly that fate on the first two days of the third test at Newlands.

One, a Western Province Cricket Club member’s guest, no less, was evicted from the expensive seats for verbally abusing David Warner as he walked up the stairs to the dressingroom after being dismissed.

Others were tossed for singing songs that were uncomplimentary about Warner’s wife.

Still others had their day at the cricket abruptly ended for wearing T-shirts that were less than flattering about Ms Warner.

And, it seems, Candice Warner was not their only target.

Darren Lehmann, Australia’s coach, left no doubt about what he thought of them.

“I think it’s been disgraceful,” Lehmann said. “You’re talking about abuse of various players and their families.

“Personal abuse is not on on a cricket ground. Not just here — it shouldn’t happen.

“You can have the banter, that’s fine. Banter’s good natured fun by crowds. But they’ve gone too far here.

“We’ve written to Cricket South Africa (CSA); Cricket Australia have done that. We’ll see their response. But it’s been poor.

“[The crowd] have got to be better than that when they come into the international arena to watch a game of two quality sides playing against each other.”

Had Lehmann experienced anything as bad in his more than 21 years as an international player and coach?

“Not on this level. We accept it all around the world but as soon as they cross the line and they’re talking about players’ families, like they have been the whole time, it’s just not on.

“There’s been various incidents throughout the test series but this one has taken the cake.”

Reminded that Australia’s crowds are hardly paragons of virtue, and specifically that “Hashim Amla terrorist” was painted on a wall near South Africa’s dugout at Bellerive Oval in Hobart in November 2016, Lehmann said: “That’s not good enough from an Australian crowd point of view either.

“We’ve got to get better at watching the game of cricket and supporting both teams.

“That’s something that both boards have got to get around.”

CSA should know that the culprit in Hobart was banned from attending cricket matches anywhere in Australia for three years.

Morne Morkel, a married man himself, which is exponentially more important than the fact that he claimed his 300th test wicket on Friday to help earn South Africa a lead of 66 runs, was given two chances to voice his disapproval at the crowd’s behaviour.

Disappointingly, he used neither of them. Instead, he said: “We can’t control that. Unfortunately, there is a bit of alcohol and there’s hot sun, and we expect that.

“When we play in Australia, I’ve played in Melbourne and I’ve copped the same sort of abuse. It’s part of the game but there is a line and it’s important not to cross that.”

Perhaps Morkel, who had been on the field for most of the day, had not been briefed on what had happened.

But that itself could be a symptom of this disease. CSA’s media and communications manager, Altaaf Kazi, has not been present at matches since he posed for a photograph with spectators wearing Sonny Bill Williams face masks — meant to taunt Warner and denigrate his wife, who had a fling with Williams — on the first day of the series.

“The crowd here is always amazing,” Morkel said. “They come out and support us all the time.

“Tomorrow is going to be even louder being a Sunday … it’s Saturday tomorrow. So Saturday and Sunday. Sjoe!

“It’s always special playing here at Newlands. It’s the marquee event and the way they get behind the boys and lift us up when we are out in the field is special.”

Special? Perhaps, but, on the evidence of the past two days, not at all in a good way.

Mitigation was promised, then, in CSA issuing a response, even if it did take them until five hours after stumps to do so.

“Cricket South Africa and the players appreciate the fans’ passionate support displayed at all our games,” acting chief executive Thabang Moroe was quoted as saying.

“However the events that transpired [on Friday] were not tolerable and something that we don’t want to see at any of our test matches.

“We have since taken it upon ourselves to beef up our security personnel to ensure that players from both sides don’t have to endure such unfortunate behavior.

“Both CSA and the players encourage supporters to continue rooting for their teams and also to behave in a decorous manner that will allow this test series to be played in true spirit of the game.”

What about the events that transpired on Thursday?

What about taking action against the ejected spectators?

What about setting the example in a society crying out for someone, something, anyone, anything to do the right thing for a change?

Too little, too late, too weak.

When is a sport not a sport?

Feel it, esports is here. That you don’t want to believe that matters bugger nothing.

Times SELECT

TELFORD VICE in Cape Town

BOBBY Fischer was and remains a sportswriter’s dream, a paranoid genius who was as likely to miss a flight because he thought he was being lured into a kidnapping as he was because he decided en route to the airport he would rather go shop for a television set.

In 1972 he missed his flight, willfully, for five consecutive nights as increasingly frazzled organisers tried to get him to Reykjavik to challenge Boris Spassky for the world championship.

Fischer eventually went, saw and conquered. Only to forfeit his title three years later in a squabble with the suits.

He emerged from years of obscurity in 1992 to beat Spassky again in Yugoslavia, which at the time was subject to a United Nations embargo and US sanctions.

That earned Fischer an arrest warrant from the US government, and in 2004 he spent months in jail in Japan for using a revoked passport.

Fischer, who won the US championship at 14, dropped out of school at 16, and was dead at 64 after he refused medical treatment for a blocked urinary tract.

A fight over inheritance promptly erupted between his Japanese supposed wife and the Filipino mother of his children, leading to the exhumation of his body for DNA sampling.

As we speak — and until March 14 — the Bobby Fischer Memorial tournament is being played in Reykjavik.

If you can’t see the rich seam of stories to be mined from all that, best you don’t take up writing.

Clearly, the kid could play. But he played chess.

Is chess a sport? Yes, say the International Olympic Committee. No, says the UK government, which doesn’t fund the game — which it would do if it did consider chess a sport.

Chess is a sport in that it is intensely competitive and requires high levels of talent and skill of its serious players.

But if chess is a sport what about draughts? Snakes ’n ladders? Monopoly? Pictionary? They’re all board games, but a roll of the dice is key to two of them. But something like talent and skill are required to play draughts and Pictionary.

What of bridge, snooker and darts, which tick all the boxes to be a sport except that they do not require physical fitness, strength, or much in the way of hand-eye co-ordination? Anyone for archery?

And if we decide that these are not sports we’ll have to ask ourselves whether some sports are more sport than other sports.

Cricket, for instance, is more physically taxing than bowls or golf but less than rugby, which is a picnic compared to boxing or marathon running. So is boxing more of a sport than golf? Hell yes, if you ask this sportswriter.

Thing is, while we’re asking ourselves these worthy questions the space for sport in the public consciousness as we know it — or want to debate it — is being eaten alive by the rising giant of esports.

Whether we regard sitting motionless, but for our typing fingers, at a computer for hours on end as a sport or not doesn’t matter. Everybody from J-Lo to Gillette is interested in getting a piece of the action in an activity that could make its Olympic debut in Paris in 2024. Science fiction? Not if you consider that esports is already on board for the 2022 Asian Games.

“We have to look at it because we can’t say, ‘It’s not us. It’s not about Olympics’,” Tony Estanguet, the co-president of the 2024 Paris bid committee, told the Associated Press last year.

“The youth, yes they are interested in esport and this kind of thing. Let’s look at it. Let’s meet them. Let’s try if we can find some bridges.

“I don’t want to say ‘no’ from the beginning. I think it’s interesting to interact with the IOC, with them, the esports family, to better understand what the process is and why it is such a success.”

The esports industry grows by more than a third a year. It was valued at US$660-million last year and is expected to reach US$.5-billion by 2020.

It is followed by 385 million people worldwide. One online platform, Twitch, attracts 400 million views a month.

The current, unofficial, esports Olympics is a tournament in Katowice in Poland that draws more than 100 000 spectators over three days.

All those nerdy geeks tear themselves away from their screens to go somewhere built of bricks and mortar to watch this stuff up close and personal.

None of them care whether their heroes can hit a six, score a goal, throw a mean left hook, or tie their shoelaces.

Feel it, esports is here. That you don’t want to believe that matters bugger nothing.

There are indeed bulletproof reasons why esports is as much a sport as anything involving balls, sweat and injuries. But they’re not the kind of reasons wanted by any sport, game, pastime, whatever.

Doping, for instance, is rife, which is hardly surprising considering esports competitors need to have the reactions of fighter pilots if they are going to make it out of little league.

And there’s a misogyny problem. On March 9, International Women’s Day, Soe Gschwind-Penski, a leading esports commentator — yes, there are people talking excitedly on air to a vast audience of people about all those other people pushing buttons — tweeted “a special shoutout to all the men in our lives who have supported us, gave us a voice when we had none, fought for our cause and treated us the way we all ought to treat each other… like a fellow human being – no race, no gender”.

You would think men, however undeserving, would be touched by Gschwind-Penski’s generosity of spirit. Or at least be civilised enough not to respond. But no …

“I’ve gotten death threats and hundreds of hate messages the past 20 minutes because I thanked men for treating me as their equal, on a day which is all about women’s struggle for equality. Hate, because I am grateful for the men in our lives who fight alongside us for our rights.”

You might say that’s just not cricket. Or, after what we saw at St George’s Park on the first day of the second test between South Africa and Australia, you might say it is.

Men turned up wearing Sonny Bill Williams face masks to try and get a rise out of David Warner because Warner’s wife, the former Candice Falzon, had a fling with Williams eight years before their marriage.

To those stupid men, Warner’s wife wasn’t a person; just a possession to do with as he and therefore they wished.

If esports can stamp out that kind awfulness, it might earn more attention from this sportswriter.

Strange days indeed continue in PE

That the SBW mask morons should drag into this idiocy a woman who no doubt has enough male stupidity in her life is vile and disgusting.

Sunday Times

TELFORD VICE at St George’s Park

THE fact that this story has pushed onto an inside page our analysis of the cricket played on day two of the second test between South Africa and Australia at St George’s Park on Saturday tells you this is no ordinary match in no ordinary series.

Things will get more extraordinary if Kagiso Rabada is banned, as seems likely, for the rest of the rubber at a hearing on Sunday evening for the moment of male madness in which his and Steve Smith’s shoulders collided, seemingly malevolently, after he dismissed Australia’s captain on Friday.

But we should begin not on the field but in the sun-scarred green plastic seats of the western grandstand.

“We want the band! We want the band! We want the band …”

The chant went up before tea from the crowd clumped there after the umpires, Kumar Dharmasena and Sundaram Ravi, shushed the brass band, who promptly got up and left, tilting the tuba huffily as they went.

They returned after tea, to cheers more rousing than anything offered for a player’s feat. But twice more the umpires suspended play to silence them, to an edgy swelling of boos.

No-one was surprised by then. On Friday, this ground, the country’s gently fading grand dame of the game was defiled by barbarians at the gate putting their misogyny where their faces were.

They wore Sonny Bill Williams masks in an attempt at humour that would have been risibly flaccid if it wasn’t so mindless.

Eight years before Candice Falzon married David Warner, she and Williams’ liaison in the toilet of a Sydney hotel was dragged through the more feral depths of the internet, photograph and all.

The masks, then, were a few pitifully limited individuals’ idea of getting back at Warner in the wake of the invective he spewed at Quinton de Kock on and off the field in the first test at Kingsmead.

That they should drag into this idiocy a woman who no doubt has enough male stupidity in her life is beyond crass. It is vile and disgusting.

That two senior Cricket South Africa officials, commercial and marketing manager Clive Eksteen and communications head Altaaf Kazi, should see fit to pose, smiling, arm-in-arm, in a photograph with three of these masked morons is a brain fart of nuclear proportions.

That SuperSport should say they will take no action against Derek Alberts, who celebrated this sick stunt on social media, is beyond belief.

At least CSA knew it had to, in a statement, “distance itself from the alleged action of certain officials” and apologise to “the board of Cricket Australia, its officials, team management, players and their families”.

Strange days indeed.

CSA suits in hot water over SBW masks

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE at St George’s Park

TWO senior Cricket South Africa (CSA) officials are under fire for appearing to endorse the wearing of Sonny Bill Williams face masks during the second test between South Africa and Australia at St George’s Park.

CSA issued a statement on Saturday to “distance” themselves from their employees’ actions.

The masks are part of a spectator campaign in reaction to Australia opening batsman David Warner’s off-field verbal attack on South Africa wicketkeeper-batsman Quinton de Kock during the first test at Kingsmead.

De Kock apparently reacted to Warner’s sustained sledging on the field by making a comment about the Australian’s wife, further enraging him.

Eight years before she married Warner, the then Candice Falzon had a much publicised encounter in the toilet of a Sydney hotel with New Zealand rugby star Williams — hence the masks.

A photograph taken at St George’s Park on Friday and posted on social media shows three fans wearing Williams masks and standing arm-in-arm and smiling with CSA commercial and marketing manager Clive Eksteen and communications head Altaaf Kazi.

The story, which broke in the Sydney Morning Herald on Friday night, quoted Kazi as saying: “Initially security wouldn’t let them in [with the masks].

“We found out because [the spectators] contacted us and we then went to security and got them in. They said ‘let’s take a photo with you guys’.”

The Australia team had got wind that fans would wear the masks, and had asked for that not to be allowed.

Kazi denied that his actions amounted to support for those wearing the masks.

“People come in dressed as all sorts of things. We let people in with Hashim Amla beards.

“We’re very clear from a stadium perspective that we monitor the behaviour and language of fans.”

CSA’s statement quoted president Chris Nenzani as saying, “On behalf of CSA I extend my sincere apologies to the board of Cricket Australia, its officials, team management, players and their families.”

The release itself said, “CSA wishes to distance itself from the alleged action of certain officials in associating themselves with fans wearing masks representing the face of Sonny Bill Williams, which conduct is seemingly related to the Warner/De Kock incident during the opening day of the second test match at St George’s Park.

“While CSA respects the rights of its fans to represent their own points of view, CSA does not associate itself with these actions and urges all Protea supporters from refraining from being involved in distasteful or unwelcome actions that may impact the image of the sport and its supporters.

“CSA has taken immediate precautionary steps against the CSA officials allegedly involved in this incident and will follow the organisation’s normal internal processes in this regard.”

Asked what those “precautionary steps” were, Kazi told TMG Digital, “Please can you ask Thabang [Moroe, CSA’s acting chief executive] or Chris as I’m currently not in a position to make comments on this manner.”

Attempts to reach Nenzani failed.

It is unclear whether the behaviour of officials of the status of Eksteen and Kazi is governed by the International Cricket Council’s code of conduct, which pertains to the actions of players, coaches, team support staff and match officials.

“An official must not do anything that may intimidate, offend, insult, humiliate or discriminate against anyone on the basis of race, sex, gender, national or ethnic origin, religion, culture, colour, sexual orientation, or otherwise,” the code reads.

Barbarians at the St George’s Park gates

What does their clumsy idiocy say about a South Africa in which women are routinely abused in every which way?

TMG Digital

TELFORD VICE at St George’s Park

SOUTH Africans held the Warnergate moral high ground until Friday, when they relinquished it to a mob of misogynists wearing cardboard cutout masks and carrying songbooks smeared with lyrics as lewd as they were lame.

The yob mob turned up at St George’s Park on the first morning of the second test between South Africa and Australia.

What their aim was wasn’t clear. Whatever it was went unattained — not a line of their songs was heard and most wore their masks on top of or behind their heads.

The masks featured the face of Sonny Bill Williams, whose name was in the lyrics.

If you don’t know why a New Zealand rugby player should make waves at a cricket match between South Africa and Australia, you probably also don’t know that David Warner is under fire for his verbal attack on Quinton de Kock during the first test at Kingsmead.

Warner launched his tirade after De Kock apparently made a derogatory comment about the Australian’s wife, which was triggered by hours of abuse directed at De Kock on the field.

De Kock shouldn’t have said what he allegedly said, but he was clearly provoked. And he said whatever he said quietly enough for only those closest to him to hear him.

Still not up to speed? In 2007 an Australian ironwoman star, Candice Falzon, engaged in what the tabloids enthusiastically dubbed a “tacky toilet tryst” with Williams. Falzon married Warner in 2015.

Ah. You can see clearly now, and the picture is as ugly as you imagine.

As if being married to one of the most unnecessarily aggressive men in sport wasn’t challenging enough, Warner’s wife has become the main victim of what he started.

Those South Africans who have shown themselves to be no better than Warner by trying to engage with him on his own pitiful level — perhaps they, like him, know no other way — disgrace all of us along with themselves.

They disgrace men. They disgrace cricket followers. They disgrace South Africans. They disgrace the human race.

What does their clumsy idiocy say about a South Africa in which women are routinely abused in every which way?

That, to them, rape and the sickening culture it breeds and feeds is not a problem?

Did any of them know that Thursday, when they carefully prepared their masks and their songbooks, was International Women’s Day?

Do they understand why what they have done would, in a better world, offend everybody and not only David Warner?

Do they care that Candice Warner had nothing to do with what happened at Kingsmead?

Do they get that what they have done is stupid and embarrassing and not at all funny?

Good on them. They must be so proud.