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Cricket South Africa must accept fault in letting the intellectual property of Graeme Smith slip through their fingers, writes Lloyd Burnard.
"I'm grateful that my name has finally been cleared."
Those were the words of former Proteas director of cricket (DOC) Graeme Smith on Monday.
This country's most successful cricket captain of all time, who in December 2019 answered the call to join the sinking ship that was Cricket South Africa (CSA) to help nurse a broken product back to health, can finally close what has been a largely nightmarish chapter.
His very appointment was almost immediately questioned, his salary was interrogated and made public, he was criticised for who he appointed into coaching and consultancy positions and why and, more recently and most damningly, he was accused of racial bias both during and after his playing days.
As if the task wasn't gargantuan enough, Smith's ride at the helm of CSA was made even more impossible by the very people who put him there.
The Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) hearings and the report that followed was a hugely necessary process for a sport that has experienced inequality, exclusion and discrimination across all levels for decades.
The testimonies that were heard needed to be told, and the ugly, uncomfortable history of this great game needed to be acknowledged and understood. It can never be repeated.
The Black Lives Matter movement opened that door and shone that light, providing a platform for cricket to look itself in the mirror.
It was always likely that there would be casualties along the way, but from the very start, Smith was identified as the sitting duck who would bear the brunt of the backlash.
The anger was justified, but so clearly misplaced.
Dumisa Ntsebeza's final SJN report, released in December last year, was 235 pages long.
It included accounts from school level through to club, provincial and national, that were deeply troubling.
Smith was implicated in three cases of "tentative" racially-motivated findings. Ntsebeza's use of the word "tentative" in no way softened the blow, and the damage was done.
The report's insinuation that Smith did not want to work under former CEO Thabang Moroe because was without any substance and was squashed by the arbitration.
Smith's treatment of Thami Tsolekile, and that player's non-selection in 2012, was more complex given Tsolekile's vocal cries that Smith was actively against his Proteas selection, while Ntsebeza concluded that a clear sign of racial discrimination. That, too, was squashed by the arbitrators, who found the clear cricketing reasons that the SJN report did not acknowledge.
The final allegation was easily the most problematic for Smith.
Why had he appointed close friend and former team-mate Mark Boucher, and not Enoch Nkwe, as South Africa's head coach? Why was the post not advertised, and why was Nkwe not considered given he was the acting team director - effectively the head coach - at the time?
The SJN report, again, concluded this was a clear example of racial bias and prejudice on Smith's part.
The way Boucher was appointed was problematic. There should have been interviews. The post should have been advertised. If Nkwe wanted the job, he should have been given the opportunity to present his case.
The questions that surrounded that process, and Smith's role in it, were valid. He was probed on that issue at the arbitration and, again, it was determined there was no racial bias shown in his decision.
Cricketing reasons informed that appointment.
They were cricketing reasons, after all, that made Smith, in the eyes of many critics and students of the game, the ideal appointment as DOC in the first place.
He had been there and done it, and who else would be better placed to resurrect the Proteas back towards being the world-beaters they once were?
During the height of the Covid-19 pandemic, and with CSA rudderless in leadership, Smith did so much more than simply plot a return to excellence for the national team.
It is not an overstatement to say that, during those months, he was CSA's only leader.
When CEOs were coming and going, entire boards were being replaced and constitutions were being rewritten, Smith rolled up the sleeves and secured lucrative international tours and domestic competitions that ultimately kept cricket's waning heart beating.
There were also flaws, the SJN report said, in Smith's appointment as DOC back in 2019, with the irony being that it was Moroe who first lured him in.
That hardly matters anymore.
At the end of March this year, Smith's contract with CSA ran its course. If he wanted to continue as DOC, he would have to apply for the role.
He didn't. Why would he?
There might be a passion for the project, but if your own employers are actively seeking your demise, then why take it on?
It is ultimately South Africa's loss, and the game's custodians must hold their hands up for this mess.
Smith is intellectual property that will be in high demand - whether in a boardroom, changeroom or commentary box - all over the cricketing globe. Just not in South Africa.
He will be just fine. Cricket South Africa, however, hasn't been for a long time, and the egg on the face this week suggests there is still a long way to go.
Lloyd Burnard is the editor of Sport24, an award-winning sports journalist and author of Miracle Men: How Rassie's Springboks Won the World Cup.
Disclaimer: Sport24 encourages freedom of speech and the expression of diverse views. The views of columnists published on Sport24 are therefore their own and do not necessarily represent the views of Sport24.
