Image source– Proteas men’s Twitter/ X handle
Transformation in South African circles is often referred to as the accurate portrayal of the demographics of the country in sport.
This fundamentally means that if much of the country is a particular race, then that race should also be in absolute prominence in the team.
Well, the question that arises then is this a deterrent to meritocracy?
In my head, the answer is yes as many players feel they are in the team purely basis the colour of their skin and not on the caliber of their performance.
Perhaps a lot of other cricketing faithful might also hold a similar sentiment that has decayed the performance of the Proteas cricket team for the longest time.
World Cup triumphs have eluded them like intellect to most people who just believe in creating mindless social media reels.
The reason, solely because meritocracy hasn’t been their mantra for rolling out teams!
A semblance of this getting arrested has been the recent Mzansi team that took the field for the 2024 T20 World Cup which was purely selected on merit without any quota interference and the result, South Africa made it to the finals with narrowly not embracing the mace courtesy a strong Indian outfit.
This indeed serves as the proof to the pudding that every team that walks onto the park on merit has the caliber to give it their all because the mind of each player is free of other societal ills.
Hence the question, what is true transformation?
Well for me as the author of this piece, transformation should reflect how a particular player can transform into a better talent to justify his selection purely based on his capability and intent to perform which is a consequence of the breeding ground that he is served to harness his skills.
And it delights me to say that Cricket South Africa has taken the first step in this direction by hosting a three-day diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) Indaba (conference) starting this Friday to make the Proteas team not only true representational of the country but also of the talent.
The plan is to put the best team on the park when it comes to the 2027 ODI World Cup which undoubtedly is the team of every South African not only in terms of demographics but also the might to perform.
And for this to happen, the talent needs to be harnessed at the grassroot level irrespective of the colour of their skin so that when they make the national team they know that the one word that justifies their selection is Deservingness.
Possibly then, and only then, one could finally see the World Cup mace painted in green and gold.
