This quota 'law' is just not cricket

PIETERMARITZBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - NOVEMBER 25, during the Momentum One Day Cup match between Sunfoil Dolphins and Chevrolet Knights at Maritzburg Oval on November 25, 2012 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa Photo by Anesh Debiky / Gallo Images

PIETERMARITZBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - NOVEMBER 25, during the Momentum One Day Cup match between Sunfoil Dolphins and Chevrolet Knights at Maritzburg Oval on November 25, 2012 in Pietermaritzburg, South Africa Photo by Anesh Debiky / Gallo Images

Published Nov 3, 2013

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Durban – Where are the black batsmen, the politicians keep asking. Where is this country’s Brian Lara, or at least a poor man’s version of him?

Twenty years on from South Africa’s fresh start to cricket, and we still wait for the first African willow-wielder who is not a flash in the pan. As those who have tried and failed at that level will tell you, it is not child’s play.

Batting is the loneliest element of the game. Yes, it’s for the team, but you are judged solely on the runs you score. Bowlers can bowl a bad ball, a poor spell even, and still come back later to take a few wickets to gloss over their previous failings.

But all it takes is one ball and a batsman’s lot is over. Even the very best of this generation, like Jacques Kallis, Ricky Ponting and even Sachin Tendulkar, have gone through periods of barren form, struggling to find the gaps to get an innings going.

So what about the poor buggers who have been shipped up the order, to bat for multiple causes? Not just for themselves, or the team that they are playing for, but also to try to justify a system that is flawed at the core, because it doesn’t take into consideration the emotional damage it does to its “projects”.

Enforcing these quotas at the highest level disillusions the very people that the game is trying to attract, throwing them to the wolves without a weapon. By the time you play franchise cricket, you should be able to hold your own at that level.

How can you possibly enforce a quota system that demands black players, technically ready or not, to be flung to the very top of the order, so that they are not bit-part players? There is no lonelier place to be than in a dressing room where you’re not sure you belong. The quota system currently only fuels resentment and division, which is ironic, because it’s supposed intention is to create balance and unity.

It was encouraging to see dogged half-centuries by Khaya Zondo and Lefa Mosena during the recent Momentum One Day Cup match between the Dolphins and the Knights, where they showed resilience and patience.

But it has also been cringe-worthy to watch our brothers battling to survive against bloodthirsty new-ball flingers.

Modern one-day cricket is not about survival or stickability, but about flair and freedom. How can you play freely when you are crippled by the fear of failure?

Regardless of what politicians and cricket suits may think, enforcing quotas is creating a false economy, it is a form of creative accounting. The number of black cricketers at the franchise level is on the up, but how many of them are happy, or comfortable in that environment?

And now they are effectively bribing cash-strapped franchises to play one more black cricketer. It is farcical, and the biggest victims in all of this are the young men, black and white, who are trying to go up the cricketing ladder on merit. There are no winners with the current system.

Most of the country’s franchises, and even the amateur sides, are basically picking 10 players, and then looking for the best equipped black player to fill a slot.

Imagine being that poor sod who has to play, even though you know, deep down, that your form doesn’t warrant a starting place.

What the administrators should be doing is ensuring that players of promise are identified early, and put in quality schools, where they will grow up in a culture of competitive cricket, where success and failure are judged on the same spreadsheet.

Where are the black batsmen, they ask. They are all over, coaching mini cricket, driving taxis, trying again at tertiary level, hustling a tender or two – doing anything other than leaving themselves open to the loneliness of the crease.

Sunday Tribune

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