The Quota System

[cricket_icon]

A great article on CricInfo with regards to the quota system:

Rob Steen: Quotas are less black and white than ever | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

I had a little discussion about this with a member here so thought I'd make it into a full blown topic. What do you guys think of this "positive discrimination"?
right, wrong or dependent upon the situation?

 

[War]

Most people on PC know my position on this, so i'll try to summarize it brief.

Apartheid and the quota policy is indefensible. Two wrongs don't make a right.

What gets ignored in this debate is the fact that most black african don't like cricket. Football player Steven Pienaar is more popular among black african than Jacques Kallis & Dale Steyn currently.

Back also when Lucas Radebe, Quinton Fortune & Benni McCarthy played in the premier league, they were more popular than Pollock, Allan Donald, Klusener, Gibbs etc in their prime.

When Ntini was at the peak of is powers in the mid 2000's that was the only period when black S Africa's really got into cricket. But football was still paramount.

Its like trying to attack indians in guyana/trinidad to play football - when they all about cricket. Dead end.

The mistake CSA have done is not get into the rural black communities & promote to sport from the grassroots level, but it makes no sense punishing the good white players who merit a place on ability.

South Africa have serious talent in depth - but their path to becoming a true great # 1 like recent Aussie & Windies teams were can be derailed by this quota policy.

I'd wager also if the ICC was a very strong governing body like FIFA, S Africa could not have implemented quotas at the highest level. Because it is a government implemented policy & we know how FIFA is against government intervention in sport - something ICC don't have the balls or structure to do.

 

[cricket_icon]

You make some very good points, are you South African? I have limited knowledge about the country's sporting aspirations and I can't possibly speak on the situation regarding black athletes and their popularity.

I agree that the quota system can be detrimental but in a country with decades of apartheid, where millions of black Africans were oppressed, cricket for them was something that just wasn't doable. Much like people from government run kids in England until the 90s where the sport started to get a push.

It's for this reason that I feel the quota system is needed, without it we may never have seen Ntini and let us no forget it is also useful for the very large Asian population, if the quota system wasn't present would we have seen Hashim Amla?

At the same time, as you mentioned, the sport not only needs to be promoted at grass roots levels but enough finances and facilities need to be provided for students who do not have access to the schools that many white South Africans do.

If there is an unbalanced economy, the quota system is necessary for some of the better non-white players to break through.

 

[War]

You make some very good points, are you South African? I have limited knowledge about the country's sporting aspirations and I can't possibly speak on the situation regarding black athletes and their popularity.

I agree that the quota system can be detrimental but in a country with decades of apartheid, where millions of black Africans were oppressed, cricket for them was something that just wasn't doable. Much like people from government run kids in England until the 90s where the sport started to get a push.

It's for this reason that I feel the quota system is needed, without it we may never have seen Ntini and let us no forget it is also useful for the very large Asian population, if the quota system wasn't present would we have seen Hashim Amla?

At the same time, as you mentioned, the sport not only needs to be promoted at grass roots levels but enough finances and facilities need to be provided for students who do not have access to the schools that many white South Africans do.

If there is an unbalanced economy, the quota system is necessary for some of the better non-white players to break through.

No ha, i'm not S African. However i know a few South Africans (black & white) and i've done my own fan research on the topic over the last 10 years, so i'm fairly confident about the facts here.

As i said two wrongs don't make right - apartheid or the reverse racism quota policy. Going back to the football point & one of the spin off effects of the apartheid era is that black see cricket as a "elite/white man" sport.

My black Saffie friend always tells me for eg, black people might play cricket at schools, they may go to games - but they won't see cricket as career option to play - they all for football. This is even the case with the black s africans who may be lucky enough to have access to it in schools or via the S Africa cricket board grassroots programs.

The only critique i think is valid to S Africa board is that they have not done enough to implement grassroots access to cricket in black communities. And local TV stations do not broadcast cricket unless its a tour to SA. The domestic championships and oversees tours are been televised on the pay channels which most ppl (black ppl) cant afford. So the latter doesn't help.

I dispute that quota's was responsible for Amla being picked today. To quote from the cricinfo article from Dr Carl Thomen of the University of Johannesburg, in his 2008 book - "Is it Cricket? An Ethical Evaluation of Race Quotas in Sport":

Surely, given the opportunities afforded the likes of Ntini and Hashim Amla, the quota system had been justified? He was not for turning. "I'm not sure that that policy was responsible [his italics] for their selection. Perhaps they were thrown in a bit earlier than otherwise, but I'm not sure you can credit the quota policies of the time with their success. The problem with quotas is that they are ethically indefensible, and they actively do damage. 'Necessity' doesn't come into it; they are evil, plain and simple."

When Amla was first picked by S Africa during ENG 2004/05 tour to Amla was an obvious quota selection along with keeper Tsokeile ahead of Boucher & he was clearly out of his depth.

Amla then went back to domestic cricket scored big runs domestically & earned his recall in 2006 on merit. Since 2006 he has grown season after season to become to world class player that he is. Nothing to do with quota here & that how it should be.

Ntini was the "first quota" selection when the policy first came about circa 1998. And it can be argued that at the time he probably was keeping out better white players (Steve Elworthy, Nantie Hayward &David Terbrugge) come to mind. But i view Nitni's case as unique because fairly soon it became obvious he was real talent & was always going to be the future of South Africa pace attack after the Donald/Pollock 90s era, and so it proved.

However though in S Africa society forms of racism still exist in the work environment - so things are not perfect post apartheid. But i'd argue in England & all across the western white man world, that blacks/minority races still have these issues in the jobs world.

This cultural problem should not then affect the sports team & as i mentioned before, S Africa are lucky ICC are a weak governing body because it they were strong as FIFA, such a policy could not have been implemented.

can you explain further? how is the quota system affecting SA, everytime I watch, the non-white players consist of Amla, Parnell (haven't seen him in a while), Petersen and very few others. Robin is good, Amla is great.

Taking this point here you asked me in the other thread.

Yes Amla, the two peterson boys, Philander, Duminy, t20 hitter Henry Davis, Tahir, Tsotobe to are coloured/black players that absolutely merit a place based on performances in domestic level etc.

But others like Parnell, Klienvelt, Behradin, Tsokelie, Phangiso who generally pop up around the ODI/T20 teams are obvious quota picks. You might have noticed while S Africa test team have been dominant - in the last two global ODI tournament how poorly they performed?. Its no coincidence why.

Parnell has not done anything in a S Africa shirt of note since the 2009 T20 world cup yet S Africa keep picking him. A guy like Chris Morris who is a regular for one of the IPL's best teams - Chennai Super Kings should be in their team every day of the week.

Klienvelt too, decent player - but no way is he a better all-rounder than Ryan McClaren. McClaren many forget was a Kolpak player for Kent & almost did like Pietersen, Trott, Kieswetter and to qualified for England, before South African convinced him to stay circa 2009. Him not being a regular all-rounder is shocking, because he would been a fixture for England today.

Behradin was a regular for long time in ODI/T20 teams until recently when David Miller finally got a chance.

Tsokelie is not even second best keeper in S Africa for tests - he was seemingly fast tracked to replace Boucher - but yet De Villiers is still keeping in tests. That man is young exciting Quinton De Kock & you have another better keeper bat in Heino Kuhn.

Phangiso was a unknown average domestic left-arm spinner. He bowled decently in the 2012 champions league & he was just fast tracked because he was black. Guys like Roloef Van Der Merwe & young off-spin/all-rounder Simon Harmer are better spin options.

 

[StinkyBoHoon]

that's a really well written article, there's definitely something going wrong with the quota system in south africa. I'm not entirley for it being dropped altogether, but it was get to black africans in the side and to be honest, players like Amla becoming established are more ways around the quota than they are showing it's performing it's function.

I'm sure south africa probably has problems with islamaphobia, like britain does, but quota's were never brought into to solve the way south africa saw it's asian population. He's just a case of "he's not white, so he'll fill a spot."

However, that article makes a brilliant point about merit, that we can't be sure merit is always equally applied and the quota system does go some way to ensure that it is in some ways redressed and merit of black players was recognised.

selection headaches pop in every team, take australia; we had the chris rogers debate when australia toured, simon katich's dropping has reared as an issue, I'm not a fan of watson at the top of the order and think hughes shouldn't be anywhere near the team. However, selectors and other posters think differently, so who is there on merit? is hughes in on merit? is watson? was katich dropped on merit? was rogers picked on merit or did he later merit his inclusion? in england there is disagreement over whether bresnan merits a regular place, or should it be the still raw finn, an under-performing but experienced Broad, didn't onions merit an ashes spot after being the best bowler over the county season by miles?

no one can give me definitive answers to these questions, they can merely argue their own opinion so it must be recognised that any arguement based around the existence of merit as an objective quality could well be fundamentally flawed.

I do think the quota system needs constant re-evaluating, because in all honesty, it isn't working. it's working the day south africa pick 5 coloured players because they want to, not 4 because they have to, this isn't even remotely close to happening.

 

[Punk_Sk8r]

This is kind of off topic but I've been out of touch from watching cricket for a few years and have just started again so was curious how has Rankin ended up in England team :|

 

[War]

South Africa v India, 1st Test, Johannesburg : CSA deny rumours of Smith quitting | Cricket News | South Africa v India | ESPN Cricinfo

Notable that cricinfo didn't allow comments to this article ha

It may be denied, but i believe based on recent evidence, that it was very true mot likely, since quota selections are still happening - but in a more diplomatic manner. Imagine if they has played this Tsokeile guy instead of Du Plessis in the 1st test

Why was Tsokeile even in the squad still, with the emergence of De Kock anyway?

How is Rory Klieinvelt who averages 42 in tests with the ball in the orginial squad over the likes of Kyle Abbot & M De Lange who had 7 wicket hauls on their debut or Ryan McLaren who had a better FC record or impressed in the recent ODI series?

Does Robin Peterson really deserve to be in the test squad over young, white off-spinner - Simon Harmer | Cricket Players and Officials | ESPN Cricinfo?

Don't bury your head in the sand folks......this quota stuff continues ever so often threatens the current S Africa's test team quest for global dominance.

 

[harishankar]

The best solution would be to keep quotas in the "A" team and not in the Test team. That way, deserving players who perform well in the A team will get a chance to play in the Test side.

 

[War]

The best solution would be to keep quotas in the "A" team and not in the Test team. That way, deserving players who perform well in the A team will get a chance to play in the Test side.

Nah even in a "A team" cricket it would be wrong, since you would be still picking a player from the domestic scene over another player - based on colour and not performances.

S Africa as i've always say need to either do more to promote, encourage & develop cricket participation and the grassroots level in the rural/black communities. Or they need to accept the general fundamental fact that cricket is more popular by the minority whites in S Africa & that the black just like football more.

Their government needs to understand this too - since it totally wrong to implement it at the highest or FC level.

 

[War]

South Africa in 2013: No. 1 on the field, not quite off it | Cricket News | Review 2013 | ESPN Cricinfo

Their successes were underpinned by consistency in selection in the longest format, however, that will change with the retirement of Jacques Kallis. Although not as worshipped or as flamboyant as other greats who retired recently, his absence will do to South Africa what the exits of Sachin Tendulkar or Ricky Ponting did to India and Australia.

Plugging the gap will be South Africa's biggest Test challenge in the next year. As will fielding a black African in the Test XI, which has now gone three years without a representative from the country's biggest demographic group. Pressure is growing for that to change.

Oh dear...

 

[War]

South Africa seek to fill Kallis-sized hole | Cricinfo Magazine | ESPN Cricinfo

Should South Africa go this way, they will have to bring in one of the reserve glovemen - Thami Tsolekile or his Lions team-mate Quinton de Kock. Tsolekile is probably the first choice. His issue has also become political because of the lack of black African players in the team. South Africa's Test side has gone more than three years without a member of the country's biggest demographic group and it is understood CSA board members are pushing for Tsolekile's inclusion.

 

[War]

South Africa Cricket News: SA franchises face higher quota requirement | ESPN Cricinfo

The controversial policy gets worse.

 

[SpitfiresKent]

South Africa Cricket News: SA franchises face higher quota requirement | ESPN Cricinfo

The controversial policy gets worse.

Wow that's ridiculous. Players shouldn't be chosen based on the colour of their skin

 

[War]

Wow that's ridiculous. Players shouldn't be chosen based on the colour of their skin

Sad reality, its the dark spot that still exists in S African cricket.

 

[SpitfiresKent]

Sad reality, its the dark spot that still exists in S African cricket.

Does the national side have the same sort of system or is it just for the domestic teams?