Warriors booted out of cup eliminator after missing transformation target

The Warriors fell foul of Cricket South Africa's (CSA) domestic transformation selection policy on Monday, with the result that the Gqeberha side have dropped out of Wednesday's eliminator against the Titans in the CSA One-Day Cup competition.

After defeating the Lions in their final fixture at St George's Park on Sunday by 33 runs on the DLS method, it was thought the Warriors had done enough to qualify for the playoff in Centurion.

Boland ended top of the log and advanced straight through to this weekend's final, while the Titans finished in second place, ahead of the Warriors.

However, the Warriors' tournament aspirations were dashed when CSA released the official statistics of the competition on Monday morning, which showed the Warriors had been demoted to fourth place, with the Dolphins elevated to second spot.

A note issued with the final points table outlined the situation.

“The Warriors were penalised all five points for their match against Dolphins on February 16 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 11.

“The Dolphins were awarded four points for the match.”

CSA issued an official statement confirming the decision later on Monday afternoon, .

“Following a comprehensive review and investigation, the CSA Board has determined the Warriors failed to meet the stipulated transformation requirements during their match on February 15 against the Dolphins in Durban,” CSA said.

“The sanctions imposed include loss of match points. Thus, the Warriors will forfeit all match points for the match in question and the Dolphins [will be] awarded four match points from the fixture. However, no bonus points will be allocated.

“A monetary fine has also been included, with 50% payable before the end of the financial year. The remaining 50% will be suspended for five years and will only be activated if a similar breach occurs within that period.” 

EP Cricket said late on Monday evening it had lodged a dispute with CSA against the decision.

“To our knowledge, no penalties of this scale have been imposed before, and the Warriors have never previously breached CSA’s transformation targets,” EP Cricket president Donovan May said in the statement.

“To our knowledge, other teams have failed to meet these requirements on multiple occasions without facing similar sanctions.

“Eastern Province Cricket (EPC) has formally disputed the sanctions under the CSA Memorandum of Incorporation.

“EPC is awaiting CSA’s decision on whether the dispute will be resolved through mediation, a round table meeting, or arbitration.”

In the February 16 encounter, the Dolphins were outclassed by the Warriors after the latter made 343/2 in their 50 overs to win by 126 runs.

However, despite having six players of colour in the team, they fielded only two black Africans in all-rounder Andile Mokgakane and wicketkeeper-batsman Sinethemba Qeshile.

The upshot is that the Dolphins will host the Titans in the eliminator in Durban on Wednesday, with the winners meeting Boland in the final in Paarl on Sunday.

There was no reason given by CSA as to why the issue took almost four weeks to resolve.

In an interview with Independent Media, Dolphins CEO Heinrich Strydom emphasised it had not been them who had put in a complaint.

“No, we didn't even bring it to their attention. It was CSA who picked it up,” he said.

“I mean, obviously, we would have loved it to be done earlier because nobody quite knew what was happening. It took quite a long time, almost a month.

“CSA phoned us the next morning [after the February 16 game] to say they were aware of it and were looking into the matter.”

Despite a request for comment, there was no feedback from the Warriors management at the time of publication. 

The final points standings as released by CSA on Monday were: 1 Boland 25; 2 Dolphins 23; 3 Titans 21; 4 Warriors 16; 5 Knights 16; 6 Lions 10; 7 NW Dragons 9; 8 Western Province 5.

The Warriors finished above Knights by virtue of having more wins — four against three.

The Herald