Why Coltart is wrong

The Herald

By Lawrence Moyo 

15 January 2013

DISCRIMINATION in local cricket is well-documented and the battle for redress has been very difficult. This is mainly because die-hard proponents of discrimination happen to occupy influential positions, mainly in the corporate world where they use financial muscle to pursue their goals.

They have used their shadowy networks to push their agenda and an example is the group that would meet at Royal Harare Golf Club in 2004 when the infamous Rebel saga broke out.

There, they would come up with plans to cripple the game by stopping big companies from funding it while also using their links to have the perceived influential cricketing teams like Australia, England and New Zealand to push for Zimbabwe’s isolation.

While the mission eventually failed, it is clear they never gave up and we now see a new campaign to reverse all the gains that had been made by the majority Zimbabweans in the game of cricket.
Sadly, a whole minister who is supposed to be championing the development of sports in the country is championing this campaign.

In what has been a well-documented matter, Education, Sport, Arts and Culture Minister David Coltart recently issued a directive to the Sports Commission to the effect that “selectors” for national teams must have played for Zimbabwe.

The initial impression by his use of the term “selectors” was that he was referring to any technical person responsible for calling up players for a national team.

Thus, in soccer, this would affect the national team coach and his assistants. But no, he was restricting it only to those sports which have people appointed to the post of “selector”. In the end we are down to just cricket and bowls (seriously!).

While making it clear that his directive removes Givemore Makoni from his post as convenor of selectors, Coltart denies also targeting Steve Mangongo, who is eyeing the post of national coach. Mischievously, Coltart says “historically” the national coach has NOT been part of the selection panel. However, anyone who follows cricket would know that coaches have ALWAYS been part of the selectors.

There have been times when voting rights have been withdrawn, but the point remains that national team coaches are part of the selection team.

What is interesting is that the directive by Coltart came soon after the Zimbabwe Cricket board approved a new-look selection panel where Makoni is the convenor. Wayne James joins Makoni as an independent national selector while the national team coach, Alan Butcher, completes the panel.

The national captain joins the panel by invitation and does not have voting rights. Communication to this effect was made on December 12 last year and there is every reason to suspect that this sparked Coltart’s reaction.

He is now reversing the appointments by coming up with a policy that targets individuals, Makoni and Mangongo.

Of course, he is doing all he can to deny it. But I agree with Makoni and all those who believe that Coltart’s actions are tantamount to trying to restore discrimination in cricket.

Everyone knows that there are very few black Zimbabwean cricketers who played for the national team.

Just to show how desperate Coltart is, he lists Ethan Dube as one such deserving former player. Coltart justifies his nomination of Dube on the basis that he played once in 1990!

Zimbabwe attained Test status in 1992 and by then Ethan Dube was nowhere near the national team. Could Coltart provide the scorecard that shows that Zimbabwe were indeed involved in an international (either ODI or Test) in 1990 and Ethan Dube earned a cap?

Because there are no such events on official records — CricInfo is the official record keeper by the way.

You can only be considered to have played for Zimbabwe if you featured in an ODI, Test or T20 match and facts will find Coltart WRONG.

Zimbabwe did NOT play an international in 1990 and teams like the President’s XI, Zimbabwe A, the Board XI are not national teams and Coltart should know that.

And even if Ethan Dube had played one ODI in 1990, what will be so special about that one match to distinguish him from people like Makoni and Mangongo who have been with cricket for over 20 SUCCESSIVE years?

Makoni and Mangongo have groomed the bulk of the black players to have featured for Zimbabwe in recent years.

What has Ethan Dube done for cricket since 1990 that can be put up for reckoning other than being resident near Coltart and the Streaks?

Australia has so many illustrious cricketers who have played hundreds of Test matches but the head of the current national selection panel, named in October 2011, is one John Inverarity.

Inverarity, who was cap number 246, represented Australia in just SIX Test matches, the first in 1968 as an opening batsman, and the last in 1972.

There have been 185 players who earned Test caps for Australia after him and most of them have played over six Tests.

Yet Inverarity is in charge of selection right now. Coltart even mentions Tatenda Taibu as a candidate for cricket selector. Again, that is embarrassing, coming from a minister who claims to be passionate and follows everything about the game.

Those who have some interest in the game will know that Taibu publicly quit the game and declared that he will be nowhere near cricket.

He even said he would NOT let his son play the game. And besides (given Coltart’s love for researching trends in other Test countries), where in the world do you have a selector who is younger than those playing and vying for a place in the national team? Also, once you consider Taibu to be good enough to be a selector, how about those who made him the player he became?

After the uncapped Ethan Dube and Taibu, Coltart also mentioned David Mutendera who was a selector recently.

But already there is a problem. The fact that Coltart is battling to come up with a list of blacks who played for the national team and can be selectors is a clear sign that the racial imbalance in Zimbabwe cricket has not yet been addressed fully.

But then the problem, as Makoni has highlighted, is that Coltart is pushing through something that was the basis of the Rebel Saga of 2004.

What is disturbing is that cricketers led by then captain, Heath Streak who is part of   the national team set-up and is reported to be vying for the coach’s post, made the demands.

And for the benefit of those who might have forgotten I will reproduce what was TOP of the list of concerns by white cricketers, led by Streak, and commonly referred to as rebels in 2004: “SELECTION PANEL: We have been concerned for some time about what we consider to be the unprofessional manner of selection.

There has been interference of a non-sporting nature. There has, in our view, been racial and ethnic discrimination in the selection of the national team.

. . . We should also stress that the minimum qualifications proposed by the players are not discriminatory and indeed it would, in our view, be easy for a selection panel to be established with a majority of qualified black Zimbabweans.

Names that come to mind would be Ethan Dube and Mpumelelo Mbangwa, both of whom are qualified, ex-national players . . .”

So, it is clear here that Coltart simply repackaged what Streak and company were demanding in a battle they lost.

What is also very clear is that there is a war that is still raging when we all thought there was progress and unity in cricket.

Makoni has been one of the fiery fighters for the cause of the marginalised black cricketers. And in the past year, he has been involved in ugly clashes in national team matters that have, sadly bordered, on racism.

• The most prominent issue is that of Vusi Sibanda. Sibanda was axed from the national team by the ZC cricket committee headed by Alistair Campbell.

Campbell and his camp punished Vusi Sibanda for choosing to improve his cricket in Australia ahead of a trip to New Zealand.

Vusi had actually played Logan Cup matches, which were ideal for a Test tour.They wanted him to play the limited-overs matches in domestic cricket.

It was a punishment that was linked to the fact that Vusi missed a T20 tournament run by a company in which Campbell might have had interests.

But what made the whole episode ugly is that on the same New Zealand tour, Zimbabwe were captained by Brendan Taylor who missed the domestic matches here to play in the sub-continent. There was an ugly exchange between Campbell and Makoni over the issue and there are records to prove that.

Coltart never went on Facebook or Twitter. He only mentioned the absence of Vusi when the team that Campbell and company wanted had been humiliated in New Zealand.

• And when Zimbabwe went to Sri Lanka for the World Cup Twenty20 there were clashes again and they pitted Makoni, Taylor and coach Allan Butcher.

And the clash was over player selection and sadly, it bordered on the issue of colour.  As convenor of selection, Makoni wanted Prosper Utseya to play ahead of Raymond Price but Taylor and Butcher were against it.

The parties clashed and it is on record that Taylor and Butcher phoned Campbell over the issue and later told Makoni that they had been told that the captain was a selector with voting rights. That meant that Makoni had been outvoted. However, Makoni eventually had his way and Utseya played ahead of Price.

• Earlier on the same tour, Makoni had wanted Stuart Matsikenyeri to play ahead of Malcolm Waller on the basis of a good tour of New Zealand. However, batting coach Grant Flower argued that Stuart was not moving his feet during nets and was tentative playing shots. So Waller was selected.

• At the same World Cup, Taylor had failed a fitness test but still played. The same fitness test result that saw Tino Mawoyo being kicked out of the national team.

• Rewind to Tatenda Taibu’s Test debut following a hand injury to Andy Flower. Those of us who were in the picture know how Donald Campbell was pushed into the team and even had a kit printed for him yet he had been named as 12th man. A group of white players didn’t want Taibu to earn his first Test cap and they tried all they could to force Donald into the team ahead of the teenager.

• Rewind to Stuart Matsikenyeri’s debut against the West Indies in 2003. He made 57 in the first innings and at 46 not out in the second innings, he was on the verge of becoming the FIRST Zimbabwean batsmen to score two fifties on debut. What happened? Captain Heath Streak made a declaration and the young boy was denied a deserved record, which would not have wasted one more over if it was about time.

• Fast forward to August 14, 2011. Brian Vitori was playing his second ODI and on the verge of making history. Having taken five wickets on debut, he was poised to make history by making it 10 in two matches. Having claimed his fourth as Bangladesh slumped to 176/8, Vitori was now looking at completing the rout. What did the captain do? Taylor gave the ball to Raymond Price. It needed the intervention of Utseya and Chigumbura for the ball to be returned to Vitori and he duly claimed the fifth wicket and a place in history.

But what is very clear is that there has been a sustained campaign to deprive black players opportunities to either play or claim a place in history books.

That’s why it will take another five to 10 years to have a large pool of retired black cricketers to be considered for national team selection.
And Coltart is trying to keep the fire burning.