South African academic sparks racism in cricket debate on Facebook

A row involving cricket, racism and a top South African academic has broken out on Facebook.

After South Africa defeated New Zealand by six wickets in yesterday’s One Day International, leading political scholar Steven Friedman wrote a post expressing his concern about the fact that de Villiers had not mentioned the names of players of colour in his post-match presentations.

For those of us who follow cricket — have you noticed that our limited overs captain AB de Villiers has a speech defect?: he can’t say the names of black players who do well. Today he got excited about Kallis and du Plessis, who scored 4 and 34, but somehow could not mention Amla who scored 92, Duminy who scored 43 or Tsotsobe who took 3 wickets. He does this after every game. Maybe our black players, if they want to be acknowledged, should play for New Zealand, whose captain is weird enough to judge his players by how well they do rather than their skin colour?

The overwhelming sentiment around the post appeared to be positive, with 84 people liking it and 11 people sharing it.

A number of users agreed wholeheartedly with Friedman:

picked that up long ago

I have noticed that…on more than one occasion[sic]

Prof. I think Mr de Villiers needs a speech therapy before it is late.Maybe that could be the reason why we perform so badly every time they are engaged in world cup games.

One user turned to humour, referencing the bookmaking scandals that have rocked cricket in the past:

since you’re talking cricket — I have come to the conclusion that the Indian players are all performing based on the bets they place on the match. This would explain their bizarrely erratic performances — dramatic losses and wins with no clear explanations why.

Robert Brand, a media veteran with experience in academia, refuted Friedman’s claims, providing transcripts of various post-match interviews featuring De Villiers as evidence:

You are — all of you — talking rubbish. How many of you actually listened to the whole interview? Has any of you ever actually heard De Villiers speak? Stephen, I think you are being unfair here – the guy had a reason for singling out those particular players this particular day.

This from the transcript of the interview: ” Always nice when someone starts well up the order like Amla this time, he made it easy for the middle order.” I think you have a hearing defect Stephen! 🙂

Friedman then attempted to cast doubt on the evidence provided by Brand:

Robert, I don’t know what transcript you have but I was listening carefully live and did not hear him mention Amla’s name. I heard the New Zealand interviewer mention Amla, but not de Villiers In any event, this is not an isolated incident. I have listened to several de Villiers post-match interviews and have never heard him praise a black player by name. Frankly, if you think there are no racial biases in SA cricket, you are not listening or watching carefully.

To which Brand replied:

Steven, I think you are absolutely misguided. I have trolled through a view video clips on Youtube of interviews with De Villers, and he praises where praise is due – including “Hashie” and “Lopsy” and “Robbie”… so I’m not sure what interviews you were watching. FYI, here is a transcript of his post-match i’view today, from Cricinfo: “We played consistently well today, Morne bowled exceptionally for us and set the trend. Morne just took wickets at the right time for us. Always nice when someone starts well up the order like Amla this time, he made it easy for the middle order. Faff is a world-class talent, I’m looking forward to watching him grow into a world-class player. We’d like to do it 3-0.”

And to continue: the dynamic in the team is not that of a unit with the kind of deep-seated divisions you describe. Anyone who has seen the interaction on the field between De Villiers and his black team-mates when one of them takes a wicket or scores runs will know that your insight in this instance is off the mark. I have HUGE respect for your political analysis, and always regarded you as the voice of reason in our complex society. But in this case you’re really not contributing to understanding – rather just helping to reinforce the prejudices of your facebook followers, most of whom, it is clear, don’t even watch cricket.

Friedman provided his longest response in the interaction, appearing to take Brand’s assertion that some of his followers might not know all that much about cricket to mean that black people don’t know about cricket.

Robert, you are living in a fantasy world. I don’t know where you hear all these terms of endearment to black team mates – I don’t hear them and they certainly are not in your transcript, of which more in a moment. In one recent match, de Villiers waxed lyrical about Morkel and de Lange, who had gone for 7 and 9 runs an over respectively, and totally ignored Tsotsobe and Peteson, who went for 4,5 each. Even if your transcript of today’s interview is correct – and I repeat that I strained my ears to hear Amla’s name mentioned and didn’t hear it – ‘Hashie’ seems to have become ‘Amla’ while Morkel and du Plessis are, of course, Morne and Faf. The reality is that de Villiers is very much part of the last few years of SA cricket which has been about barely tolerating black talents while lauding any white mediocrity who performs half well. The good news is that we now have a coach who, after several years in India, can look at cricketers as cricketers not as whites selected because the establishment wants them and black selected because it has to put up with them. Now all we need is a captain and selectors who feel the same way and Proteas cricket might start becoming a source of pride rather than shame. One final point – it is deeply patronising to suggest that black people who complain of racism in cricket are not knowledgeable. I know many black cricket lovers who are devoted to the game – every one of them believes that SA cricket is still riddled with racism.

There were a couple more comments before the thread petered out. Friedman has 5 000 friends of Facebook.