Managing South African transformation: The story of cricket in KwaZulu Natal, 1994-2004

Patterns of Prejudice

Volumn 38, Issue 3, 2004, Pages 253-278

  Padayachee, Vishnu ^a,b   Desai, Ashwin ^a   Vahed, Goolam ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF KWAZULU NATAL   (South Africa)

^b Board of Cricket SA (Pty) Ltd

Author keywords

Class; Cricket; Identity; KwaZulu Natal; Race; South Africa; Sport; Transformation

Indexed keywords

EID: 4444235232     PISSN: 0031322X     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1080/0031322042000250457     Document Type: Review

References (90)

1. D. Booth, The Race Game. Sport and Politics in South Africa (London: Frank Cass 1998), 210.
2. The terms used in this paper are problematic to the authors who hold that the division of people into biological groups differentiated by colour ('race'), to which one can attribute specific features, has no scientific validity or explanatory value in social science. However, the categorization of South Africans according to race is a legal and 'social fact' in post-apartheid South Africa. The 2001 Census, for example, categorized South Africans as either 'White', 'Coloured', 'Asian' or 'Black African'. Furthermore, these categories are in continuous use in everyday life, whether one is applying for a job, an identity document, a research grant, or filling in government documents pertaining to skills training or employment equity. For this reason, the authors have not placed these terms in inverted commas. Despite our deep reservations, we adhere broadly to the terms used in the Census and generally in public discourse. Thus 'Indian' is used to describe those whose ancestors arrived from South Asia over a century ago; 'African' is used to describe individuals whose mother-tongue is a language indigenous to Africa, mainly Zulu in this case, and who are described in the 2001 Census as 'Black African'; while 'Whites' refers to the descendants of European settlers. We regard all the above categories as African, though this is not the classification employed in this essay. The term 'Black' has been used since the 1970s to refer to Africans, Indians and Coloureds. We also contend, with Tariq Modood, that 'the act of studying them ["race" groups] does not "construct" them: they are part of the basic facts of British [read South African] society and their study is a well-established activity. They are "given" to us by British [read South African] society and an on-going research stream': T. Modood, R. Berthoud and J. Nazroo, '"Race", racism and ethnicity: a response to Ken Smith', Sociology, vol. 36, no. 2, 2002, 419-27 (421).
3. A. Desai, V. Padayachee, K. Reddy and G. Vahed, Blacks in Whites: A Century of Cricket Struggles in KwaZulu-Natal (Pietermaritzburg: University of Natal Press 2002), ch. 4.
4. Ibid., ch. 3.
5. G. H. Vahed, 'The Making of Indian Identity in Durban, 1914-1949', Ph.D. dissertation, Indiana University, Bloomington, 1995, 53.
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8. Vahed, 17.
9. G. Maré, 'Race thinking and thinking about race in South Africa', paper presented at the History Department, University of Natal (now KwaZulu-Natal), 3 April 2000.
10. A. Appudurai, 'Playing with modernity. The decolonization of Indian cricket', in C. A. Breckenridge (ed.), Consuming Modernity. Public Culture in a South Asian World (Minneapolis and London: University of Minnesota Press 1995), 23-48 (27).
11. J. Nauright, Sport, Culture and Identities in South Africa (Cape Town: David Philip 1997), 26-7.
12. A. Odendaal, Cricket in Isolation: The Politics of Race and Sport in South Africa (Cape Town: A. Odendaal 1977); Desai et al.; K. Reddy, The Other Side. A Miscellany of Cricket in Natal (Durban: KwaZulu Natal Cricket Union 1999).
13. A. Odendaal, Cricket in Isolation: The Politics of Race and Sport in South Africa (Cape Town: A. Odendaal 1977); Desai et al.; K. Reddy, The Other Side. A Miscellany of Cricket in Natal (Durban: KwaZulu Natal Cricket Union 1999).
14. A. Odendaal, Cricket in Isolation: The Politics of Race and Sport in South Africa (Cape Town: A. Odendaal 1977); Desai et al.; K. Reddy, The Other Side. A Miscellany of Cricket in Natal (Durban: KwaZulu Natal Cricket Union 1999).
15. Nauright, 140.
16. Ibid., 154.
17. G. Farred, Midfielder's Moment. Coloured Literature and Culture in Contemporary South Africa (Boulder, CO and Oxford: Westview Press 2000), 146.
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21. Aron 'Ali' Bacher (b. 1942) captained South Africa to a 4-0 series victory over Australia in 1969-70, the country's last official series before it was banned from test cricket. The ban was lifted in 1992 during negotiations to abolish apartheid. Bacher, a medical practitioner, went into private practice as a general practitioner in 1970 and later became involved in cricket administration, helping to organize a series of controversial rebel tours to South Africa during the 1980s. These angered Blacks and Bacher was despised by many. Yet he was appointed the managing director of the UCB in January 1991, a position he held until 2001. During this period he effectively controlled South African cricket. He was appointed executive director of the 2003 Cricket World Cup, the first to be held in South Africa. See R. Hartman, Ali: The Life of Ali Bacher (Harmondsworth: Penguin 2004).
22. Farred, 142.
23. Desai et al., 378.
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28. Interview by the authors with Mohamed Timol, 1 August 2002.
29. Minutes of the meeting between the Constitutional Review Committee of the UCB, delegates from provincial boards and individuals working in Development Areas, Johannesburg, 12-13 September 1997 (copy obtained from the NCU).
30. L. D. Naidoo, 'Management and Development of Cricket in South Africa with Special Reference to Natal', Ph.D. dissertation, University of Durban-Westvilly (now University of KwaZulu-Natal), 1993, 224.
31. Letter from Mohamed Timol to the NCU, 1 April 1995: private collection of M. Timol.
32. Booth, 'Cricket haunted by race'.
33. Interview by the authors with Logan Naidoo, 16 August 2001.
34. Baaskap is an Afrikaans term used locally to mean a 'boss-type' mentality.
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48. Interview by the authors with Nelson Raju, 26 July 2002.
49. Interview by the authors with Karam Hiraman, 26 July 2002.
50. Interview by the authors with Ash Bissesswar, 25 July 2002.
51. Minutes of a COGOC meeting, 23 March 1997: private collection of Karam Hiraman.
52. Minutes of a meeting between COGOC and the NCU, 13 May 1997: private collection of Karam Hiraman.
53. Interview by the authors with Vishnu Tewari, 31 July 2002.
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55. Letter to the editor, Daily News (Durban), 27 May 1997.
56. Minutes of UCB Vision Seminar, July 1997 (copy obtained from the NCU).
57. I b i d.
58. Speech: private collection of Ahmed Kharwa.
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60. Minutes of the Steering Committee, 19 May 1998 (copy obtained from the NCU).
61. 'UCB introduces quotas', Cricinfo, 8 December 1998 (webpage no longer available).
62. 'Transformation Charter launched', Cricinfo, 4 January 1999 (webpage no longer available).
63. Minutes of the TMC meeting with Provincial Monitoring Chairpersons and CEOs, East London, 6 March 1999 (copy obtained from the NCU).
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65. Minutes of UCB Development Conference, Johannesburg, 28-9 May 1999 (copy obtained from the NCU).
66. Y. Manjoo, 'Logan Naidoo now at the helm', Tribune Herald (Durban), 4 June 2000.
67. P. Robinson, 'Outcry at selection of all-White team', Cricinfo, 1 December 1999 (webpage no longer available).
68. R. Bright, 'Blacks' day as White steps down', Electronic Telegraph, Issue 1704, 24 January 2000, available at www.telegraph.co.uk/htmlContent.jhtml?html= /archive/2000/01/24/scsafr24.html (viewed 13 July 2004).
69. A. Odendaal, 'Why "change" really isn't a dirty word', South African Sports Illustrated, October 2001, 60-5 (62).
70. A. Desai, 'A sick joke?', Independent on Saturday (Durban), 22 January 2000.
71. P. Compton, 'Kurz ousted', Daily News (Durban), 31 May 2000.
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74. Letter to the editor, Daily News (Durban), 14 January 1999.
75. Report of the Transformation Monitoring Committee, July-December 1999 (copy obtained from the NCU).
76. P. Crompton, 'It's tough being an Umlungu (White)', Daily News (Durban), 1 February 2001.
77. P. Robinson, 'Quotas will lead to exodus', Cricinfo, 3 October 2000 (webpage no longer available).
78. Odendaal, 'Why "change" really isn't a dirty word', 61.
79. Logan Naidoo, quoted in Y. Manjoo, 'End of quotas', Tribune Herald, 14 July 2002.
80. Balfour on The Tim Modise Show, SAFM Radio, broadcast 16 July 2002.
81. 'Balfour gets tough', Daily News (Durban), 11 July 2002.
82. Minutes of meeting between TMC and PMCs, Durban, 7 April 2000 (copy obtained from the NCU).
83. I. Khan, 'Sonn reigns', Sunday Tribune (Durban), 5 August 2001.
84. J. Craig, 'Nyoka in shock resignation', The Star (Johannesburg), 10 April 2002.
85. D. Hlope, 'Too many Indians are also chiefs', City Press (Johannesburg), 2 June 2002.
86. S. Khumalo, 'Ngema not sorry', Natal Mercury (Durban), 29 July 2002.
87. 'Cricket goes professional', 4 February 2004, published on SuperCricket, the website of the sports channel SuperSport, at www.cricketnet.co.za (no longer available).
88. Z. Erasmus, 'Introduction: re-imagining Coloured identities in post-apartheid South Africa', in Z. Erasmus (ed.), Coloured by History, Shaped by Place. New Perspectives on Coloured Identities in Cape Town (Cape Town: Kwela Books and SA History Online 2001), 13-28 (19).
89. Desai et al., 387.
90. J. Maingard, 'Imag(in)ing the South African nation: representations of identity in the Rugby World Cup 1995', Theatre Journal, vol. 49 1997, 15-28 (17).