Personal View: Quota not black and white (13 June 1999)

13 June 1999

Personal View: Quota not black and white

Tony Lewis

Conversations on the World Cup fringe, colourful at the time, usually float away like blossom on the wind. Rarely do they reappear for debate at dinner on the same evening and I cannot imagine cricket-lovers so stung by an exchange by day that they are left pacing the bedroom at midnight.

The passage of World Cup game relegates boundary chatter. And yet last week I could not clear my mind of the talk which led to a worrying conclusion - this will be South Africa's last chance to win the World Cup for 30 years or more.

The ANC government is seriously concerned that coloured and black cricketers are not coming through into the national team. They want a quota system in position. At present every state team has to include one black or coloured cricketer. They want more. They want the quota to apply to the Test team, too, and the proportion of non-whites should increase considerably. Standards, inevitably, will decline. It means that this World Cup is South Africa's valete at the top level of international cricket.

It is easily understood, of course, that 30 years at the lower international level is a small price to pay for true integration. There is no argument about the objective, but the question buzzing in my mind all week is whether a quota policy is right for the game of cricket. It may work in parliamentary representation but can it possibly be right for the culture of cricket which is as much in the mind as in the body? At what point does cricket become a natural, national game?

Around the world we have believed that the South African township development programme would produce the first-class players of the future. Is that happening? I am told it's not. The development programme may identify basic ability but it is only the schools who can shape it into a real talent.

Is it a matter of time and patience for talent to develop in the traditional ways? The West Indies believe so and have advised South Africa to expect it to take three times longer than they would imagine for cricket to become everyone's game. Can a black cricketer be comfortable if he is taken into a team for non-playing reasons? Makaya Ntini appeared to be encouraged by Hansie Cronje's side and looked to be improving and enjoying himself by the end of last summer's England tour. But was he good enough to be playing? Are Ntini and Paul Adams role models? Will they start the flow? Is there a danger that the large following for cricket in South Africa will be alienated by the compulsory quota system? How can we compare?

It is important for every country to select the very best side but to ensure that the streams of progress, bottom to top, are equally fast-flowing. I hope that the South African government is patient and keeps driving the investment downwards to the level playing fields.

The talk of anyone at Lord's is either fond or painful reminiscence. John Reid was a 21-year-old in Walter Hadlee's New Zealand side of 1949. On the Saturday of MCC's match against the tourists there were 28,000 spectators sitting in stands or on the grass outside the boundary. John Reid went in to bat for New Zealand on Monday.

"It was so dark walking down the back stairs and even darker going out through the Long Room where members gave me a sympathetic clap. Through the double door, down the steps into sunshine and there I was at last, ready for 'em. Trevor Bailey pitched it up. I went for the drive. Tinkle! tinkle! Bowled by the first ball I ever faced at Lord's."

Majid Khan, sitting alongside us, was more interested in the slaying of the pigeon by Paul Reiffel's throw at the Oval. Majid's father, Jehangir Khan, who played for India, was the man who sent down the ball in the MCC match against Cambridge at Lord's in 1936 which killed a sparrow in transit to T. N. Pearce.

Agreeing that hitting one of the many pigeons at the Oval is not so difficult to do, Majid informed us that his father had a great arm. "He was in the India team of six for the Empire Games at the White City. Javelin." Then turning to his wife, Seema, announced: "The hurdling member of the team was Seema's uncle." Why did this not surprise me? Perhaps because Majid captained Pakistan, as did his cousins Imran Khan and Javed Burki. And Majid's son, Bazid? "Ready to bat for Pakistan now, but don't tell him. He should be studying."

Source :: The Electronic Telegraph