‘Mr de Villiers unfairly discriminated against Mr Zondo’ – Damning report against Boucher, Smith and de Villiers in SJN Hearings report

Social Justice and National Building (SJN) have released a report on Cricket South Africa’s conduct against its players, and has revealed that plenty of personnel involved were discriminated on the basis of race. The report states that a lot of people involved in the CSA administration, including Graeme Smith, Mark Boucher and former captain AB […]
 
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‘Mr de Villiers unfairly discriminated against Mr Zondo’ – Damning report against Boucher, Smith and de Villiers in SJN Hearings report

Social Justice and National Building (SJN) have released a report on Cricket South Africa’s conduct against its players, and has revealed that plenty of personnel involved were discriminated on the basis of race. The report states that a lot of people involved in the CSA administration, including Graeme Smith, Mark Boucher and former captain AB de Villiers had shown racial prejudice to some of the players.

Paul Adams, the former South African spinner, had testified that he was named “bl*** s***” by his teammates, and Mark Boucher had admitted to having sung a song that involved some racial slurs. He apologized for those remarks and mentioned that a lot of the white players were unprepared for the post-apartheid reign. He mentioned that they lacked the understanding of what was sensitive.

The report also highlighted plenty of incidents involving player selections, where captains or players involved in the team were accused of racial discrimination. After Mark Boucher’s untimely retirement due to an eye injury, Thami Tsolekile was expected to take reigns as he was already contracted with the team.

As it turned out, he only represented the side in 3 Test matches before AB de Villiers was handed the wicket-keeping duties. Once Quinton de Kock came into the picture in 2014, Tsolekile was totally out of the picture for selection. The report read that Graeme Smith had failed the player, and many such black players during his tenure as South African captain by showing systematic racism.

AB de Villiers extends support to SJN investigation, but denies allegations

‘Mr de Villiers unfairly discriminated against Mr Zondo’ – Damning report against Boucher, Smith and de Villiers in SJN Hearings report

‘Mr de Villiers unfairly discriminated against Mr Zondo’ – Damning report against Boucher, Smith and de Villiers in SJN Hearings report

Another incident involved AB de Villiers and Khaya Zondo in the tour to India back in 2015. JP Duminy was injured for the final ODI to be played at the Wankhede, and despite the availability of Zondo in the team, South Africa had announced Dean Elgar in the playing XI, someone who had just flown in from South Africa and took the field without much rest.

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Then-CEO Haroon Lorgat mentioned that De Villiers pressurized him to get Elgar picked. The ombudsman found that de Villiers flouted the National Selection policy by talking to Lorgat ahead of Zondi and that he did so “just to ensure that a black player was not placed in a position which he deemed as requiring greater experience,” the report reads. “The only reasonable conclusion is that Mr de Villiers unfairly discriminated against Mr. Zondo on racial grounds.”

In response to these allegations, AB de Villiers mentioned that he only took decisions based on what is best for South African cricket, and never based it on race. He also extended his support to the SJN report as he wishes to make this sport an equal opportunity for everyone involved.

In another part of the report, it was also confirmed by SJN that no clear evidence was found to suggest that black players were unfairly targeted during the investigations which were carried out in 2015/16 after their domestic T20 competition received match-fixing allegations.