Warriors, the provincial team based in Gqeberha, will not compete in the domestic one-day cup playoffs after being docked points for failing to meet Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) transformation targets.
On Monday afternoon, CSA confirmed the sanction in a statement, which included a monetary fine of an undisclosed amount. “A monetary fine has also been included, with 50% payable before the end of the current financial year,” the statement said. “The remaining 50% will be suspended for five years and will only be activated if a similar breach occurs within that period.”
Warriors are now also at the bottom of the consolidated standings – which takes into account performances across first-class, one-day and T20 cricket – and at risk of relegation to the second division of South Africa’s provincial structure. The team that finishes last in Division One automatically drops down to Division Two, and the team that tops Division Two is promoted.
Teams that contravene the transformation targets without satisfactory explanation (such as an injury) are required to appear in front of the CSA board. In this instance, Warriors were asked to present their case to the CSA’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) commission and ESPNcricinfo understands Warriors explained their team selection as being based on “cricketing reasons”. The DEI then deliberated on an appropriate sanction, which was to dock points from Warriors and award them to Dolphins.
Notification of the points deduction was communicated to teams on Sunday evening, three weeks after the incident took place and two days before the knockouts. There has been no reason given for the timeline and it appears not everyone at CSA was aware of the points change. On Monday, CSA’s own website said that Titans and Warriors had made the playoffs while Dolphins had missed out, but the points table distributed by CSA’s stats team confirmed the new positions and included this note: “Warriors were penalised all 5 points for their match against Dolphins on 16 February for a breach of Clause 3.2.2 of the Administrative Conditions for not complying with the on-field target requirement of a minimum of three Black African players in the starting eleven. Dolphins were awarded 4 points for the match.”
There is no appeals process for sanctions meted out for missed targets but ESPNcricinfo has learned that Warriors have sent CSA a legal letter in an attempt to have the punishment reversed. This is unlikely, with Dolphins already advertising the playoff match at their home ground, and given the short turnaround time. Further, Warriors, like all other teams, agreed to CSA’s administrative conditions at the start of the season which includes the application of transformation targets. This has happened every season since targets were re-introduced in 2013.
CSA’s transformation target for domestic teams requires them to field six players of colour per XI, of which at least three must be black African. This is different to the national team’s target of six players of colour including at least two black African players which is calculated on average over the course of a season, which gives them more flexibility. A similar notion was mooted to domestic sides in 2018 but rejected at a coaches’ conference in favour of more rigidly applied targets for every game.
Several sources have told ESPNcricinfo that the process of obtaining an exemption from CSA in the case of injury is relatively simple and efficient. However, Warriors did not claim to have any injured players and explained their selection was based on strategy instead. Tactical swaps are not reasonable grounds for missing the transformation targets.
Firdose Moonda is ESPNcricinfo’s correspondent for South Africa and women’s cricket
