The issue of transformation appears to attract more attention these days than the performance of our national sides, and cricket in particular.
If we ignore the politicians for a moment, difficult as that might be, the view of Chris Nenzani (pictured above), the President of Cricket South Africa, makes interesting reading.
An article by him in Daily Maverick states:
How much better off would South African cricket be if we could bring a whole generation of cricketers of the talent of Kagiso Rabada and Temba Bavuma through our talent development pipeline and not just these two Black African diamonds?
I cannot think of one true sports lover that I know who would disagree with him on this.
Nenzani emphasises what he calls the dual vision of Cricket SA: making cricket accessible to all and make our country a nation of winners.
He points out that the two successes mentioned above both came from private schools, as did Makhaya Ntini. “…there are only about 4,000 schools in this country out of a total of more than 26 000 that have adequate playing facilities, not to mention the coaching and mentoring expertise, needed to turn out a first-class cricketer.”
Cricket SA, in conjunction with the Department of Sport and Recreation and the Department of Basic Education, have allied the community hubs and Regional Performance Centres to address this problem.
“The proof of this pudding can be seen in the 123 youngsters from the various hubs and Regional Performance Centres who represented their provinces at the various national age group tournaments at the end of last year. This really is something huge to celebrate, the fruits of which we will be enjoying in the years ahead.”
“There is one other statistic that I would like to put on the table. When Temba Bavuma was approaching the climax of that historic century he scored at PPC Newlands earlier this year, and when Kagiso Rabada was running through the England batting line-up at SuperSport Park for the second best Test match bowling figures of all time for South Africa – the best figures significantly belong to Makhaya Ntini – SABC’s television viewership topped 10-million on both occasions for a notable first for South African cricket.”
While criticism is often aimed at Cricket SA for the slow progress in transformation, Nenzani highlights two changes aimed at speeding up the process:
“One is the transformation of our governing model that saw for the first time a board elected with a strong independent component back in 2012. We effectively now have three tiers of governance with a members’ council as the highest decision-making body that appoints and delegates authority to the board, which sets the general policy. The policy is then executed by the chief executive and his staff.”
“The other area is the operational model that has been developed to ensure the sustainability of all of our operations at professional and domestic level. It has been enthusiastically embraced by all our affiliate and associate members and has enabled us to free up finances for the areas where they are most desperately needed.”
When one considers the positive impact transformation has had on every area of our business, there is no doubt that we are on the right track to play our part in creating the South Africa we have always wanted ever since the unification of our game into one democratic and non-racial structure 25 years ago.”
Please click here to read the full article on the Daily Maverick website.
