"W
e’ll drive by it,” says the taxi driver when we enquire of the Kingsmead Cricket Ground. “It’s just up the road from where you guys will be staying,” he continues as we motor bleary-eyed from Durban International Airport on an overcast morning towards the supposedly sun-drenched city, after a grueling 24 hours of air travel and stop-overs.
We’re here for cricket but World Cup Football is in the air. As we alight from the terminal, a massive electronic ticker outside counts the days to the kick-off which South Africa will host. The government will spend US$860 million to build a new airport as part of the city’s massive infrastructure upgrade.
The new facility will be named King Shaka International after the famous despotic Zulu chief who established regiments in Natal in 1818, and ruled until he was killed by his brother Dingane in 1828. In choosing to do so, South Africa seems ready to exorcise its past.
Kingsmead Sahara Stadium
We drop our bags at the City Lodge on Old Fort Road and make the 5-minute walk west to the 25,000 capacity cricket ground, home of the KwaZulu-Nation Cricket Union which first saw Test cricket action in 1923 when England and South Africa played to a draw.
The writing press quarters are sealed behind tinted glass high above the action. There’s no sound of bat on ball, no crowd noise, no music, nor is there any breeze like the one which blows in that home-grown aroma from the uncovered eastern South Camp Road Stand at my beloved Sabina Park.
I find a seat just as Daren Ganga succumbs to the moving ball. Courtney Walsh, Jamaica’s Ambassador-at-Large doing work here for Caribbean Media Corporation (CMC) extends a welcoming hand, but his colleague Fazeer Mohammed works me over.
The scribes are now in what was once the President’s lounge, which now occupies a more spacious room catering to 260 people. This was part of the facility upgrades which were completed in December 2002 and include a new public announcing system, a high resolution electronic scoreboard, and a new Venue Operations Center that houses the brain-trust for disaster management, security, medical services and stadium management.
Tribute to a Hero
A life-like painting of Malcolm Marshall who once played for Natal, hangs on the wall in the hallway at the top of the stairs leading to the media center.
“He was a model professional for us,” says Aslam Khota, the soft-spoken mixed-race broadcaster doing commentary for South Africa Cricket Union (SACU). “And as you know, he had a marked influence on our own Shaun Pollock,” he notes.
Ground Feats
It was here that in 1939 a Test between England and South Africa played over ten days March 3-14 – and later known as the timeless Test - had to be called off for the visitors to catch their boat home. It was the last match of the five-Test series which England were leading 1-0.
It was here in Durban too that South Africa would play their last Test before international isolation – the 129-run romp over Australia in the 4-0 clean sweep of the 1969/70 Test series.
Natal was the provincial powerhouse back then with seven players who either played for the province or were born in it, packed into that 1969/70 Test side. Among them, Barry Richards and Graeme Pollock who got 140 and 274 respectively to help establish a first innings of 622 for 9 declared in the Test.
South Africa would not play another Test for 22 years when they emerged to lose to the West Indies in the one-off match in Barbados.
But before their re-admission to international cricket, Lawrence Rowe’s `Rebels’ toured South Africa unofficially in 1983-84 - a fact that the mixed-race Aslam remembers with some pain.
“Yes, they drew good crowds. But by coming, they let us down badly” he bemoans. “So what if you could watch cricket in the same stadium as whites, but at the end of the day you still had to take separately-seating transportation back to your state-devised township?” he asks rhetorically. “Look what happened to Colin Croft,” referring to an incident where Croft when he was on his first `rebel’ tour, was asked to remove himself from a `whites-only’ seating section on a train, to the one designated for blacks.
Revisiting History
I take a photo with Robin Jackman in a much quieter setting than the one he experienced in Georgetown, Guyana some twenty seven years ago. Back then the Rhodesian-born Surrey professional had been flown out as cover for England’s Bob Willis, but was refused entry into Guyana because the government there felt that his inclusion in the touring party had breached the Gleneagles Agreement.
The Guyana Test was cancelled but the tour later resumed as other territories concluded that Jackman’s case was not covered by the Agreement – the uproar was however afterwards called `The Jackman Affair’.
Livewire Done
Then there’s Dennis Done – the 80 year old livewire. Retired from The Natal Mercury the local newspaper, he is now managing editor of the weekly Kwana in the City. A fixture in the press box he takes kindly to Nick Ford and me, taking us over to the Kingsmead Mynahs Club at the south end of the ground, to have a drink and show us around.
An Honorary Life Member since 1991, Dennis introduces us to his club’s President Mr. R. Hollie Clarkson, and to Mr. Vivian Smith the leg-spin twin to famed South Africa off-spinner Hugh Tayfied, who played nine Tests for the Springboks between 1947 and 1957. There we also meet a club member Danny Flower of the local Steel Profiling & Grinding Services in Jacobs, who offers to show us the neighborhood.
During the New Zealand 1953-54 tour of South Africa, Done had the onerous task of telexing the action ball-by-ball for all five Test matches back to New Zealand for South African Broadcast Corporation: “The lag was about six to seven overs but it worked,” he says.
Mooring
As I moor on the Lower Marine Promenade and watch people meander and the Zulu Rikshas trot by, Durban hardly, I wouldn’t think, now resembles part of the place that Europe colonized back in about 1652 and part of this province commonly known as The Last Outpost of Empire, which Vasco da Gama, a Portuguese explorer stumbled on in 1497.
Years later, the British keen to trade mirrors, blankets, beads and tobacco for local ivory, horns and hides determined that the Bay of Natal (Durban Bay), being one of the few natural harbours along the east coast of southern Africa, was best suited for establishing a port (Port Natal) in 1824.
Durban now handles the greatest volume of sea-going traffic of any port in southern Africa, despite being South Africa’s third largest city. Natal also had South Africa’s first steam railway, the subcontinent’s first steam tug, and the first electric tram installed there in 1902.
Between the ‘30s and the late ‘50s the Bay was a base for flying boats and later, a terminus for first commercial air route between South Africa and Europe. Now it’s known to some as eThekweni or `place of the sea’
The Legacy Remains It has been thirteen years since South Africa shed its apartheid shackles. But though all apartheid laws including racial separation and separate living areas have been repealed, settlements for blacks still exist.
In a survey taken seven years ago, 17% of them had no electricity, 22% had only access to street tap water, only 25% of Durban’s population was satisfied with its housing and 29% had no refuse removal. More so, in Durban 67% of Africans fell under the poverty level compared to just 2% of whites.
These realities contrast sharply to the glitzy image local writer, photographer and man-about-town Peter Machen paints in his new book: Durban: A Paradise and it’s People.
Notwithstanding, several high-profile positions in South Africa are now occupied by Africans. Among them the nation’s President - Mr Thambo Mbeki, his ruling (ANC) party leader Jacob Zuma, Mr. Khaya Ngqla, CEO of South African Airways, and the Premier of KwaZuli-Natal Province Mr. S’bu Ndebele. The Minister of the strategically important Minerals and Energy Department Buyelwa Sonjica, is an African woman.
Moseying Around South Africans aren’t very specific in language.
“How late are they opened?” we enquire at hotel’s front desk the first night we were in, before heading to The New Café Fish Restaurant & Bar overlooking Durban Yatch Mole on the south end of town. “Late,” they say. But when we catch a taxi and get there at a reasonable hour, `late’ isn’t late enough. We backtrack, head north, and for the rest of our stay rotate between Circus Circus Eatery or Cape Town Fish Market Restaurant & Sushi Bar both located in the sprawling Suncoast Casino and Entertainment World complex on the north side of town, and Piatto, a Mediterranean kitchen on the trendy North Beach strip.
In center-city Durban across from the Main Post Office and a little up from the Workshop Mall, we run into Dawit Menelik Tafari, a Rastafarian from Manchester, Jamaica selling his Rastafarian wares with a pal at a well decked-out stall. “Down ya cool maan,” he says enthusiastically.
Going back into time we pause at the bust of Lisbon-born writer Fernando Pessoa who for nine years attended an English school in Durban till 1905. One of his most celebrated works is the sprawling fictional diary The Book of Disquietude.
Coming Together
“Tings are betta now,” says the 22 year old African waitress with whom I share a cigarette on the metal bench outside the frontage of Durban International Airport as I await my South African Airways flight back home.
“We can now live where we want to and we can attend the schools and universities of our choice too,” she says. “But some white people still display their petty jealousies at our new status,” she reminds.
The Indian bartender in the dining room at Kingsmead, suggests much the same. “I cheer for South Africa cricket team now. But before, I wouldn’t.”
And no wonder. His ancestors were brought to Natal by the British colonial authorities as indentured labourers in the 1860s to work the cane fields for the burgeoning sugar industry. And to add insult to injury, Natal at the time, imposed a burdensome £3 tax on those Indians who wished to stay after their indentures expired. This situation brought Mohandas Gandhi in 1893 to, among other matters, pacify the situation.
Gandhi first landed here in Durban en-route to Johannesburg – a journey which roused his spirit of protest and helped shape his political career after he was ordered to move to a third-class coach despite possessing a first-class ticket.
Still Teething
The transformation is still teething. Under a policy set out by the governing cricket body - Cricket South Africa (CSA), six of every 14-man squad are mandated to be players of colour –a policy that has Andre Nel a white and Charl Langeveldt of mixed race, at odds on the eve of the team’s Test tour of India this March.
“South Africa stands to lose two of its premier fast bowlers because of political interference in selection,” said Tony Irish CEO of the South African Players’ Association, after Langeveldt the fast bowler withdrew from the tour when he realized that he was being selected for quota reasons.
“Any form of veto, interference or involvement in the selection of the Proteas by anyone who is not a selector should be abolished,” Irish insisted. But this too shall pass.
Like all cities, Durban is hardly perfect. But, it’s heading in the right direction.
RAY FORD, a KC Old Boy and resident of the United States,has written on West Indies cricket for newspapers and magazines for the past 30 years.
The writing press quarters are sealed behind tinted glass high above the action. There’s no sound of bat on ball, no crowd noise, no music, nor is there any breeze like the one which blows in that home-grown aroma from the uncovered eastern South Camp Road Stand at my beloved Sabina Park.
It has been thirteen years since South Africa shed its apartheid shackles. But though all apartheid laws including racial separation and separate living areas have been repealed, settlements for blacks still exist.