Cricket South Africa (CSA), on Tuesday, has dropped all the disciplinary and racism charges against the men’s national team head coach Mark Boucher. The board said that there is no basis to sustain any of the disciplinary charges, including charges of racism against Boucher. Boucher was charged with the role he played in the alleged discrimination of Adams around 20 years ago, revealed at last year’s Social Justice and National Building (SJN) hearings.
“The Board of CSA has therefore formally and unreservedly withdrawn all of the charges,” CSA said in an official release.The drama unfolded a day after Paul Adams confirmed that he would not testify in the hearing, which was to have started on Monday and could have led to Boucher’s dismissal.“Mr Adams recently announced that he had withdrawn from testifying against Mr Boucher during the disciplinary hearing. In doing so, Mr Adams stated that his concerns articulated during the SJN process were about the overall ‘culture’ in the Proteas team during the early 2000s, rather than being about any particular player,” CSA’s statement said.“During the SJN process, Mr Boucher formally apologised to Mr Adams. After the SJN process, Mr Adams indicated to CSA’s lawyers that he accepts this apology.“Mr Nkwe decided that he too did not wish to testify against Mr Boucher during the disciplinary hearing. In doing so, Mr Nkwe stated publicly that he did not intend to take sides regarding Mr Boucher and that ‘whatever happens in that process, I hope the outcome will be the one that’s best for the game’. ”“CSA’s lawyers engaged with various other potential witnesses over the last month and concluded that none of the three charges were sustainable.”
Earlier, Paul Adams, the only player of colour in the team when he made his Test debut in 1995, had revealed that he was subject to racial stereotyping during his nine-year-old career. “I was called brown sh*t when I was playing. It often used to be a song when we won a game and we were in fines’ meetings (team celebrations after series wins). They would sing, ‘brown sh*t in the ring, tra la la la laa… When you are playing for your country, when you have had that victory, you don’t make sense of it, you brush it off, but it’s blatantly racist. Some people will say unconscious bias and they weren’t aware but this is why we are here – to change that,” Adams had said. Adams, who played 45 Tests for South Africa from 1995 to 2004, on Sunday confirmed that he did not intend to single out Boucher during the SJN hearings, and he would not testify at Boucher’s hearing.“I went to SJN with no malice but with good intentions so that present and future players, irrespective of race, wouldn’t have to go through what I and other players did in those times,” said Adams in a statement released on Sunday.
