I imagine that when other teams announced their squads for the 2024 World T20 in the United States and the Caribbean, there were fan disagreements. That is natural. There is only space for fifteen players, and most countries have more than fifteen players worthy of consideration. So, disagreements over selection are inevitable. However, when South Africa announces its squad for the 2024 World T20, inevitably, at some point, the discussion will end up involving either transformation or the quota system.
As I read the squad list for the Proteas’ latest attempt at conquering the seemingly insurmountable mountain that is ICC tournament cricket, it wasn’t lost on me that the South African cricket team seemed to be going backward in their goal of socially engineering a cricket team representative of the country they represent. At the end of the 2023 Cricket World Cup, CSA had apparently decided to increase their transformation targets. By the end of 2030, the Proteas playing XI was expected to comprise only four players. We’re not here to discuss the rights and wrongs of transformation. That’s for another day. What we are going to talk about is the fact that the squad for the World T20 only has one black African player in the team. That’s less than 7% for our numerically inclined followers. It also only has six players of colour, which is 40% of the squad. For reference, the current “target” is an average of 52% generic players of colour and 24% “black African.” Now, if South Africa plays all of their players of colour every game, they’ll just about meet the target for players of colour. But unless they plan to play Kagiso Rabada twice in the same game, they aren’t going to meet their target for black African cricketers.
To be clear, the transformation target is just that; a target. CSA is under no compulsion to meet the goal if they feel it is not ideal. As we discussed six months ago, CSA didn’t meet their transformation targets last year, and nothing happened. Indeed, the current goal to have only four white players in the national team was supposed to have been achieved by 2023.
Regardless, it’s worth noting the next time you or someone you know blames all of CSA’s ills on transformation targets, just remember – everything’s made up, and the numbers don’t matter.
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