Ntini’s claims demand action

On the occasion of Makhaya Ntini’s 100th Test match for the South African cricket team, he received a letter from Nelson Mandela which said in part: “What you have achieved goes beyond the number of matches you played; you have demonstrated, especially to the youth of our country, that everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.” What Mandela was not aware of at the time, was that SA’s first black cricketer not only had to fight the physical circumstances of having been born in the backwaters of…

On the occasion of Makhaya Ntini’s 100th Test match for the South African cricket team, he received a letter from Nelson Mandela which said in part: “What you have achieved goes beyond the number of matches you played; you have demonstrated, especially to the youth of our country, that everyone can rise above their circumstances and achieve success if they are dedicated to and passionate about what they do.”

What Mandela was not aware of at the time, was that SA’s first black cricketer not only had to fight the physical circumstances of having been born in the backwaters of the Eastern Cape in a little village called Mdingi, but that he also had to fight racism in the highest echelons of cricket, even as the country idolised him.

SA has been somewhat immune to the effects of the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement that has been sweeping the world following the murder of George Floyd in the US in May.

There have been pockets of reactions, but for a country as racially divided as SA, BLM has been grossly ignored – until Ntini came along and poured his heart out. Racism, especially the kind Ntini talks about, is an uncomfortable subject. It is hard to quantify and even harder to point out a specific culprit. It is unlike the legislated kind that shaped apartheid but the effects are equally destructive and soul-destroying for the victims.

The first and only South African to have achieved the feat of taking 10 wickets at Lord’s in England, Ntini says he always felt lonely on tour with his Proteas team-mates. Not the “I miss my family and friends” kind of lonely, but the kind that came from the realisation that his white team-mates avoided social interactions with him.

Proteas fast bowler Lungi Ngidi came in for heavy criticism from some of the Proteas old guard like spinner Pat Symcox and Boeta Dippenaar for simply suggesting the Proteas must talk about issues like racism. It is interesting that it is the people who played alongside Ntini when he experienced his worst in the Proteas who came out guns blazing for 24-year-old Ngidi.

“Sport has the power to change the world. It has the power to inspire. It has the power to unite people in a way that little else does. It speaks to youth in a language they understand. Sport can create hope where once there was only despair. It is more powerful than government in breaking down racial barriers,” Mandela once said.

The easiest thing to do right now will be for the discussion to be shelved as is usually the response when racism is brought up in settings that are considered untouchable.

It is such a pity that the people at the helm of both the management and technical aspects of the game, Graeme Smith and Mark Boucher, were both part of the setup that Ntini was part of. They might be good people and mean well but for real transformation and dialogue around racism to occur, they must consider themselves part of the problem.

Former captain Faf du Plessis sums it up perfectly: “I’ve gotten it wrong before. Good intentions were failed by lack of perspective…” Smith and Boucher should have been first to speak out against Symcox and Dippenaar, then Ngidi would know his and Ntini’s lives matter to Cricket SA.

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