Cape Town – Addressing parliament’s Sport and Recreation portfolio committee, Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) president Chris Nenzani said the country had eased up on transformation over the past few years.
“Over the past 20 or so years, we relaxed and that is why we had only Makhaya Ntini making a strong claim for the national team,” said Nenzani.
Nenzani was concluding the CSA presentation to the portfolio committee, saying he wanted to make a general statement about transformation.
“We had an unfortunate past and cricket was not spared,” said Nenzani. “Transformation is an imperative in the country, in all spheres of life.”
Nenzani said the responsibility of transformation was not, however, the task of the national coach.
“The national team coach does not have the responsibility to transform the team. The levels below the national team is where the targets will be set,” he said.
Nenzani said there were no transformation targets at a national level but guidelines did exist.
“We ensure that when a black player gets into the national team, it is because he is good and not because he is black.”
“Transformation and skill are not mutually exclusive,” he said.
Nenzani added that CSA wanted to ensure that the process of transformation saw the best black players in a Proteas jersey.
“Because if we don’t do this correctly, we would be second guessing this process and this is not something we want to do,” he said.
Nenzani said the make-up of the team had to be “a truly national team”.
“We want to ensure that when a team goes out, it is the best team and it has the support of everyone in the country.” – ANA