Prince fed up with ‘rubbish’ about transformation

The dreaded “T” word in sport has reared its ugly head again.

Transformation is back in focus after former Proteas cricketer Graeme Pollock said that the national team will have to accept being a “middle-of-the-road” Test side if they stuck with racial quotas.

His comments, which followed South Africa’s defeat against England at Lord’s two weeks ago, drew widespread criticism.

Pollock backtracked on Friday, with a spokesperson releasing a statement saying his comments were “misconstrued”.

“Speaking from London, Graeme Pollock wishes to convey his heartiest congratulations to Faf (du Plessis) and his team for their excellent Test victory at Trent Bridge. With the series now level at 1-all, this sets up the series for a fascinating outcome,” said spokesperson Basil O’Hagan.

“Graeme also extends his sincerest apologies to CSA Board and the South African cricketing public for the manner in which his comments at a recent function in London were totally misconstrued.

“Graeme fully supports the endeavours of the transformation process as further evidenced in the radio interview he had on July 6 with Jonathan Agnew of BBC’s TMS broadcast.”

Ashwell Prince, a former Proteas captain and batsman, and current Cape Cobras coach, said, Pollock’s comments were “most disappointing”.

“They (Pollock’s comments) most definitely struck a nerve. Not just with myself, but it seems the overwhelming majority of South Africans,” Prince said.

“Quite frankly, as a former Protea, one has reached the point where you simply just cannot sit back and allow people with these kind of mindsets to keep feeding the world this kind of rubbish and just let it be.”

In August, former Proteas batsman, Daryll Cullinan, caused controversy after he told ESPN: “My issue around that (transformation in cricket) is, it’s inherently not a black man’s game in the country.”

Prince continued: “Some people and certain media in this country with similar backward mindsets feel its their duty to tell the world that non-white people, people whom they have never met, sometimes never seen play, and know absolutely nothing about, have nothing good to offer our national teams, simply because they’re not white.

“Mr Pollock talks about merit selection or non-political selection. I would like to take him back to his era and remind him of the name D’Oliveira. It would be very, very naïve to think that apart from the legendary Basil D’Oliveira, there would not have been any (Hashim) Amlas, (Vernon) Philanders, (Herschelle) Gibbses, (Makhaya) Ntinis or (Kagiso) Rabadas in those days.

“I mention these names because they all have one thing in common; the fact that at some stage of their careers, they all occupied the No 1 ranking in the world. Not in the country, in the world.”

He said transformation is a sensitive topic in South African sport, but it cannot be ignored: “An example of the most obvious case of transformation is the demographic make-up of our national teams: the numbers.

“People who were disadvantaged under the previous political regime simply have to be given opportunities which in the past were reserved for a privileged minority.”

Prince captained the Proteas twice in 66 Tests, and played 52 ODIs and one T20 international.

“Transformation has been a topic from as long as I can remember. From the day I made my first-class debut in 1995, up to the day I retired in 2015, I had heard every kind of abuse you can think of under the sun.

“The message is all very much the same, just varying in expletives, but basically trying to tell me that I’m not good enough and that I will never be good enough, and that I’m only there because of the colour of my skin.

“The difficulty we face in South Africa is that the influential people, ie captains, coaches and selectors, until recently have predominantly been white. The fact that those people are/were predominantly white shouldn’t necessarily be a negative for a non-white player, providing those people have transformed hearts and minds.

“Unfortunately, in my experience as a player, that did not seem to be the case. White coaches and captains seemed to prefer to stick to ‘what they know’; in other words, their own kind, because that is what they feel they can trust.

“Another massive factor that slows down transformation is the self-same coaches failing to invest time and energy developing the skills and general understanding of the game among the black communities. People seem to think that if their ‘foundations’ can build a couple of nets in a township, they’ve done their bit. Don’t get me wrong, there are a lot of foundations out there, and I think of JP Duminy’s JP21 Project doing great work in Mitchells Plain giving disadvantaged kids an opportunity.

“But when it comes to young cricketers making it at elite level, we need coaches to transform their minds, to start believing that somebody can come out of the JP21 Project and go all the way to the top to represent the country.”

Prince’s advice to youngsters? “Keep your head down, work hard ... You’ve got to be prepared to leave no stone unturned to reach your goals.”
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