Marius
International Debutant
This post isn't about top-level cricket, this is about grassroots cricket. There seems to be a bit of a worry that the increase of non-whites in SA cricket is harming the standard, and resulting in the death of cricket in SA. I am captaining a team which is playing in the sixth league of the East Rand cricket league near Johannesburg. The team is mainly schoolboys, with one or two guys who have finished school recently. The best batsman in the side is a 19-year old Indian guy, and the best bowler is a 16-year old black kid. I only took the team over in Feb, and so far under my captaincy we've played three and won two. The game we lost, we were murdered, all out for 46, losing by nine wickets. The team that beat us was from the black township of Wattville, and made up entirely of blacks. These guys don't even have nets or a homeground, yet they beat a team from the suburbs with pretty good facilities pretty easily. The two teams we beat were both almost exclusively white. I for one am not worried about the future of cricket in SA. Cricket is well on its way to becoming a truly national sport, and when it is, South Africa will be unstoppable in world cricket.