It was a warm and humid afternoon in Durban on February 16 and the Dolphins were in good spirits before their opening fixture in the Cricket SA 1-Day Cup. The Warriors had made the trip from Gqeberha in equally confident mood and chose to bat first after winning the toss.
The pitch was dry, as is usually the case at Hollywoodbets Kingsmead these days, and likely to suit the spinners even more as the match progressed which suited the visitors perfectly as they had selected a second specialist spinner in Jason Raubenheimer.
Opener Jordan Hermann batted throughout the innings for a marvellous, unbeaten 148, around which Matthew Breetzke (62) and Beyers Swanepoel built a formidable total of 343/2 which was far too many for the home side who quickly succumbed to 217 all out handing the Warriors an emphatic bonus-point victory by 126-runs. And that was that. Or not.
The Warriors’ extra spinner, Raubenheimer, hails from Schauderville in Gqeberha, an area that locals tell me is not somewhere to be stranded after dark and from which it is difficult for youngsters to make their dreams come true. But he worked hard in pursuit of his, was awarded a scholarship to Selbourne and became a professional cricketer.
But he is not a black African and his place in the starting XI, awarded to him by coach Robbie Peterson, meant there were only two black Africans among the six players of colour required by the Cricket SA playing conditions for competitions under its jurisdiction.
Teams are permitted some flexibility with the composition of their starting XIs but only in the event of injury and with a special dispensation from Cricket SA before the match. In the event of a warm-up injury just before a fixture, the match referee can be consulted and “emergency” permission granted which is later ratified by Cricket SA.
On Sunday evening, after the final round of group matches in the tournament, with the Warriors having clinched a place in the qualifier match against the Titans at Supersport Park, the Warriors were penalised for their selection blunder 22 days earlier. All five points they earned for their 126-run victory were taken away and their place in the qualifier match was gone.
But that’s not all. Bizarrely, the Dolphins were awarded four points for winning a game in which they had been thrashed. These points saw them not just leapfrog into the qualifier with a chance to play Boland in the final, but into second place with the added advantage of hosting the Titans at Kingsmead. The Titans, it would appear, have been caught in the crossfire.
But that’s not all. Cricket SA’s decision to incorporate two divisions in domestic cricket — with promotion and relegation — was noble in its intent but fraught with danger. Whereas the success and progress of teams such as Boland and the North West Dragons is laudable, a nightmare scenario is playing out at the bottom of division one with the Dolphins, the Warriors and Western Province stranded in the bottom three places. One of them will be in division two next summer.
The Dolphins’ unexpected and unexplained extra four points are worth their weight in gold — or beer sales at the very least. It makes the chances of Garden Route Badgers and Eastern Cape Linyathi being spotted at Newlands next season all the greater, but perhaps even more likely at St George’s Park.
There are many questions to be asked. Where to start? How about, why did it take Cricket SA 22 days to take action against the Warriors when their error was obvious to everyone on the day it occurred?
More esoterically, are more cricketers such as Raubenheimer being disadvantaged by the current system than are being advantaged by it? Real transformation, as we have often been reminded by Cricket SA, is about providing opportunities for the (previously) disadvantaged, not skin colour.
We have come a long way since the Thando Bula story 20 years ago when the club cricketer was hauled out of the stands to take his place in the Highveld Lions XI for a Standard Bank Pro20 match after Ashraf Mall was injured 25 minutes before the start of the game and the 12th and 13th men were both white. Nobody even dared to contravene the four players of colour rule, as it was back then.
The need to encourage the development of more black African players is pressing and real. There is not, and should never be, a way around or past that fact. Is it worth considering implementing at provincial level the system which operates with national teams, in which the Proteas are marked on their overall team composition at the end of a season rather than in every match?
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