DAVID ISAACSON | The Mark of a man: Boucher must show genuine contrition and remorse

The SA cricket tour to India in early 2000 was organised with military precision, especially during the five one-day internationals.

The manager of the team, Goolam Rajah, employed local muscle to help with the logistics of moving a squad of players, coaches, support staff and their luggage.

All bags were marked with a blue ribbon for the handlers to make for easy identification at the airport carousels, including the luggage of the few members of the SA media who covered that trip. We were four journalists and one photographer.

Everything went without a glitch, and from the media perspective we had one travel challenge throughout that month — getting from the ground at Vadodara after the fourth ODI to the airport to catch our flight out.

We anticipated that by the time we had filed our match reports, there would be no time to order and wait for a taxi. We didn’t have to explore all the options available to us, however, because Rajah came to the rescue, allowing us to travel on the team bus.

But the one caveat was that whatever happened on the bus stayed on the bus; it wasn’t for publication.

Boucher wasn’t the only one who participated in the singing, but everyone else is not coaching the Proteas right now.

Nothing untoward really happened, except for one small incident involving Mark Boucher, who happened to be sitting in the row in front of me.

The bus had to make its way past cheering fans who, in India, treat the sport almost like a religion. Thanks to their fervour and population, they’ve helped to make the world’s best cricketers rich.

Boucher slapped the window and barked his disapproval of the vocal fans. On the one hand, there was an attitude among the team about what they perceived as invasive fans.

I think it was in Mumbai at the start of the tour that fast bowler Allan Donald, wearing only a towel after a shower, answered a knock at the door of his hotel room to find a fan there with a pen and an autograph book. He wasn’t impressed.

But Boucher was sitting in the safety of the bus and none of the fans was close to even the window level, but he was still offended enough to hit the window and complain.

I don’t know if he was in a bad mood because SA lost the match and with it the five-match series, or if he’d had some terrible run-in with supporters I didn’t know about, but his behaviour seemed odd.

Nobody else batted an eyelid.

But years later, in his autobiography, when Boucher admitted to basically possessing a poor attitude in his earlier days, I immediately thought back to that moment on the bus.

His participation in the overtly racist song directed at his former teammate, Paul Adams, has been well documented now and he has been charged for it and is facing disciplinary action. He could be dismissed.

For a sport that seems to come up with many uncreative and straightlaced nicknames, like Bouch for Boucher and Polly for Shaun Pollock (rugby has done so much better on this front with the likes of Draadkar, Mof, Domkrag, Baksteen, Vleis and Bossie), cricket has shown a darker side through the race-based bullying of Adams and other elements, like match-fixing.

On the one hand, it was probably hard for younger players wanting acceptance in the team to challenge the singing of the “brown s**t” song, but it must have been so much more difficult for Adams, Boucher’s junior by a little less than two months, to endure it.

Boucher wasn’t the only one who participated in the singing, but everyone else is not coaching the Proteas right now.

Coaches in other codes have been felled by accusations of racism. Andre Markgraaff had to step down as Springbok coach after being taped uttering the K-word in 1997.

Boxing trainer Nick Durandt was also taped using the same word and while he kept his gym going, almost all his boxers left him. The only one who stayed was Phillip Ndou, effectively keeping him in the game. Durandt went through financial hell at the time, but he came back strongly.

Markgraaff also returned to rugby, though not at national level.

Genuine contrition and remorse is a must to earn forgiveness.

I can’t help but wonder what Rajah, who died last year, made of the whole “brown s**t” song at the time. His loyalty was to the team, but he offered good insights.

It would have been fascinating to hear his thoughts on that. Did he feel complicit in any way and regret not confronting the matter? Or perhaps he felt powerless to act. Because if his wings were clipped, the racism was probably systemic and went further than the dressing room.

We might never know.