Australia is burning. The Middle East is a seething tinderbox thanks to Donald Trump’s reckless war mongering.

But you wouldn’t know it in South Africa.

The year has begun in tediously familiar (and narrow) fashion: hand wringing and navel gazing around transformation in sport. Like Groundhog Day, up it comes every year, the go-to subject for rabid criticism, serious discussion or prompt dismissal.

Cricket, predictably perhaps, has been in the firing line, for transformation in general and Temba Bavuma’s exclusion specifically.

The rights or wrongs of Bavuma’s situation have been thrashed out chiefly on social media – not a place renowned for high-brow discourse – and transformation in general has thrown up a hash tag or three. Few of the arguments either way have been fresh or level-headed.

Antagonists take sides, usually at polar opposites, dig in their heels and fire away. So far, so boring.

Regardless of your views around transformation, the facts are indisputable. Black representation at the highest levels is underwhelming, so too the pipeline, which shows few signs of spitting out elite-level black batsmen. (Black bowlers, it must be said, are emerging in encouraging numbers).

The argument for transformation isn’t as crass or as simple as black cricketers replacing white, but rather about creating equal opportunities to ensure that development occurs at more or less similar levels.  This is an important distinction because understanding it would help displace much of the anger that simmers around the subject.

Cricket SA has rigid race-based policies around team selection at national level. The trouble with these is that the prescribed diktat is heavy-handed and inflexible, notwithstanding Faf du Plessis’ throwaway remark that “we don’t see colour”, a trite comment in an environment like ours. Nothing wrong with artificial attempts to accelerate change, but the top-down approach is flawed.

We saw as much in rugby where a succession of Springbok coaches grappled with demographics. Only when franchises and unions grasped the nettle – that transformation isn’t optional – did it make Rassie Erasmus’ job easier. He could pluck the fruits of their endeavours to be representative, losing nothing by way of quality.

The World Cup squad was proof of this, although to claim that rugby has got it right would be to stretch the truth. Much cajoling and convincing still goes on behind the scenes to ensure that coaches and team bosses do the right thing. There’s no end game either. Transforming rugby is an endless work in progress, a social mission as much as a sporting one. The challenge thus continues.

Twenty-five years into democracy, it is time for the harsh truth to dawn for cricket bosses. Despite massive investments, both financial and emotional, the system for developing black talent isn’t working. A sorry lack of black SA team contenders is proof of this.

Perhaps a black-led player council, a well-funded, slick mentorship programme, or even specialist training camps, are the answer.

Social, economic and cultural norms, which dictate factors like access, funding, support systems and even nutrition, must be acknowledged and embraced if the model is to prosper.

There are no easy answers, but cricket requires a nuanced, sincere and practical solution to a problem that will not go away until change is both real and permanent.

Only then will the keyboard warriors find new targets. – © Sunday Tribune