Mbeki put on stand-by (24 May 1999)

24 May 1999

Mbeki put on stand-by

Mihir Bose

The South Africans are confident that, should they get to the World Cup final, then Thabo Mbeki, due to succeed Nelson Mandela as their country's president, will fly in to support the team.

Mbeki is due to take over from Mandela on the Wednesday of the first semi-final. And Mandela made a point of being prominent, even putting on the Springbok shirt, when South Africa upset the All Blacks to win the rugby World Cup.

Publicly, the South Africans refuse to move away from the football manager's cliche of taking each match as it comes - no-one is talking of finals or winning. However, one highly placed South African insider said: "If we get to the final then I would expect senior Cabinet ministers, if not the president, to be there."

It will have heavy symbolic significance as the government is keen to encourage black cricketers into the national team. There are none in the present squad, and it has not gone unnoticed that Zimbabwe's Henry Olonga - one of two blacks in the Zimbabwean side -has been a match winner.

There have been mutterings that the squad is not happy with positive discrimination, but insiders say that events in Allan Donald's recently ghosted autobiography, which described captain Hansie Cronje's unhappiness, were overstated.

However, as soon as the team return to South Africa, Ali Bacher, managing director of South African cricket, is due to take the squad away to a game park for a briefing on the situation. Top cricket officials are expected to talk to the players about how cricket can play its part in the struggle against racism.

Then in September, a 10-day or two-week camp will be held for black cricketers already playing in the provincial game. A strategy will be devised there to fast-track them into the national squad.

Cronje will attend that camp and will take a high-profile role, but also there will be a new force in South African cricket, the coach Graham Ford.

Bacher told me: "We see the captain as the general, the boss. The coach will do all that is necessary to make sure the captain can shape a winning team." It signifies a change of emphasis as present coach Bob Woolmer, who has been very instrumental in Cronje's development, was seen as something of a father figure.

It also emphasises that the South African cricket establishment no longer feels the need for a foreign coach. Ford has never played international cricket but was a highly regarded as provincial player and has plaudits from the likes of Malcolm Marshall.

The mood among the South Africans is that victory at Lord's would be a platform to show that they have nothing to learn from abroad and that they can chart their own course - probably teaching the world a thing or two along the way.

Source :: Electronic Telegraph (https://www.telegraph.co.uk)