The Star E-dition

Manack, De Villiers ‘to blame’ for Zondo snub

STUART HESS stuart.hess@inl.co.za

LINDA Zondi said he was “very upset” when he found out that

Khaya Zondo was not in the Proteas’ starting XI for the final One-Day International against India in 2015.

That incident has hung over Cricket South Africa’s Social Justice and Nation-Building hearings and been used by many who have testified before the Transformation Ombudsman, Dumisa Ntsebeza, as proof of racism at the highest echelons of SA cricket.

Zondi, the convener of selectors at the time, said he had talked to on-tour selector Hussein Manack and another member of the panel, Ashwell Prince, the night before the match – the decider in that five-ODI series – and it was decided that Zondo would play.

Manack told the SJN in August that he deeply regretted not standing up to captain AB de Villiers, who had insisted that Dean Elgar, who wasn’t in the ODI squad for that tour and had just flown into Mumbai from SA ahead of the subsequent Test series against India, should play on account of being a more experienced international player than Zondo, who was still uncapped.

“I’m glad Hussein came to the hearings and confessed that he had pressure … I was clear with him (at the time) that I was very unhappy with the decision,” Zondi said yesterday.

Zondi told the hearings that because David Miller was out of form in that series, Zondo was a natural replacement.

Matters became somewhat complicated when JP Duminy was injured, but according to Zondi, that meant that all the selectors had to do was find a replacement for Duminy in the squad.

“For me, there was no issue;

Khaya had been the second-best batter for the SA A side in a tour earlier that year to India, he was in form and it was in his position in the middle order. It was a no-brainer for me as a convener and us as a panel that Khaya must play. That was made clear to the selector, Hussein,” Zondi said.

“When Hussein came back to me after I asked, ‘what happened?’ he told me that after the discussion the night before the game, where we made the decision that Khaya would play, he shared the information with AB de Villiers the captain, and De Villiers was not happy with the decision and in his unhappiness, he felt AB had put him in a corner.”

When Manack testified to the SJN, he said he had got the impression that De Villiers would refuse to take the field if Zondo was picked.

“The captain was extremely adamant that he didn’t want Khaya in the team,” said Manack.

“I just felt the fall-out of me standing my ground at that stage, would have, I think, made things worse for the team and made things worse for Khaya, because if he played, after I’d insisted he played, and he didn’t score runs and the team lost, I think he would have been blamed for it. So all those things were going through my mind. I still look back at the moment and think, ‘should I have been stronger? Should I have stood my ground?’”

Zondi told Ntsebeza that both De Villiers and Manack were wrong.

“AB knew I was the full-time convener. At any stage if he was not happy with the decision of the panel, he should have contacted me first and said he was not happy and explained himself.”

In his testimony to the SJN, which was made public the day after Hussein testified, Zondo said he had lost all respect for De Villiers.

“The captain (De Villiers) called me over to the side, away from the rest of the team, and mentioned to me he was the one who felt I should not play. He was trying to explain himself and he was taking full responsibility for the decision.”

Zondi remarked that he never thought about whether his instructions were ignored because he is black.

“The issue of whether they didn’t come back to me because I was a black convener, I didn’t have time to entertain that. They took a decision, which went against my decision, but I wasn’t there. It was unfairly done. (Zondo) should have played,” Zondi said.

SPORT

en-za

2021-10-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

2021-10-22T07:00:00.0000000Z

https://thestar.pressreader.com/article/281973200854599

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