I was fortunate to have known the late Khaya Majola quite well. His son Vukile, who we knew as Eric, went to the school I taught at before the family moved to Boksburg and he was a very good centre in the junior rugby team I coached.
Khaya was at every game we played that year and was friendly and generous with his time and advice.
I got to think of those days after reading Mtutuzeli Nyoka’s excellent autobiography, Deliberate Concealment – An Insider’s Account of Cricket South Africa and the IPL Bonus Saga, in which he describes his relationship with Khaya and his brother Gerald Majola, and suggests that things at Cricket South Africa would have turned out very differently if Khaya’s untimely passing had not occurred.
The under-19 national schools cricket week is, of course, named after Khaya Majola, in recognition of the work he did as the head development at the national union.
I would see him at the Coca-Cola Khaya Majola Week each year, and also from time to time at club cricket games in Joburg because, and it’s not widely known, Khaya was also the coach of the Soweto Cricket club.
His role there was very significant, and topical, as the transformation debate rages on. I spoke with him about it on several occasions and he was convinced that the way to keep promising black cricketers involved in the game beyond school was to create opportunities for them to play as a team of their own, in their own environment, not as the odd black player in the predominately white clubs of Northern Joburg.
It worked. Soweto did quite well in the local premier league those years and several of those players went on to play first class cricket.
Next weekend will see the start of the Gauteng Schools Cricket Weeks, including the Beckwith Week, which used to serve as trials to choose the Khaya Majola Week team. I say “used to serve” because the latest quota requirements (there have to be seven players of colour in the 13-man squad) has led to the six slots allowed for white players generally being filled by the experienced players left over from last year’s team.
So, the majority of the players who will be in action – and the school and area sides participating are all still predominately white – are not really in the running for selection.
The same system was in place last year and I have to say the teams chosen were good – Gauteng sides dominated the provincial weeks in all the age groups, including winning the “main game” at the Coke Week at St Alban’s.
The team that won the “final” in Pretoria last year was made up of players exclusively from the traditional cricketing schools – former model C or private schools.
The black players in its ranks were almost all there on scholarships and some of them would have come from the township areas and travelled a long way to school each day.
There they received a world-class education, and top-notch cricket coaching at first class facilities.
The question that needs to be asked is: how many of those players are involved in the game now, apart from those still at school of course? I don’t know the answer to that, but I’d wager that not many are. It was easy when they were in the school environment, nurtured and supported. Once removed it’s not so easy to carry on. There simply aren’t the same opportunities at home to join a club that’s far away, and foreign in culture, is not something that every player can, or wants to do.
Khaya Majola knew that and that’s why he put so much effort into the Soweto Cricket Club. I know there are good people there still, continuing his legacy, but Khaya was a giant and no-one since has been as effective as he was.
If Khaya Majola had not been taken from us so early, cricket transformation would have been in a much better state, and Dr Nyoka might not have gone through the ordeals he did in dealing with his brother at the Union.