Gary Kirsten

Bruce Whitfield: Today's guest is Gary Kirsten. He played a hundred and one test matches, a hundred eighty-five one day internationals for South Africa between 1983 and 2004. And for a while, he was vice captain of the Proteus.

Everyone needs to be the best that they can be on a day and for me building that culture, and the leadership that drives at is critical. Because without that car start to play with fear and win guys play and perform with fear, you don't get the best version of that person, but it's difficult because it's all results-based. It's the same as any company they are accountable to their shareholders bottom line and results everything. If you don't have the results, forget about the internal health of the organization results are everything and that's the key. If you become mesmerised into that space with a result is more important that what is the process that you are setting up to allow the results to take place. You can have a lot of inconsistency in your performances.

I'm Bruce Whitfield and you're listening to RMB Solutionist Thinking.   

Bruce Whitfield: He held the record for the highest individual score by a South African in a one day international, a hundred and eighty-eight not out against the UAE in the 1996 World Cup. Does it count if it's against the UAE? I mean no disrespect against the UAE, but they're not exactly up amongst the cricket playing nations of the world...

It's certainly not something that I talk about. In fact, it was in 1996. It was a long time ago. I completely forgotten about it.

Bruce Whitfield: Do you miss the game? Do you miss playing>

Not at all Bruce? Yeah. Now, I've nearly I've nearly been retired as long as I was playing. So, I played 17 years, I've been retired 15. So, I'm looking forward to this getting over there 17 years where I become a proper old person in the game of cricket.

Bruce Whitfield: You were in the pre-professional era and the professional era was fundamentally different?

Yes. It was I think when I started playing in even in the 80s, I don't think we ever thought of cricket as a as a job, as a kind of a lifetime opportunity to work. We always thought of it as something that you would do recreationally and that yes, you could make a living out of it, but always in the back of your mind you were having other options in terms of where you're going to take your life.

Bruce Whitfield: Cricket traditionally was the four-day test and then it came the five-day test and fewer and fewer tests get to five days. And those that do it just go on for too long. Then there was the Benson & Hedges 50 over series and that me and made cricket exciting and now the T20 and of course went and coached India for three years and you're a big fan of the T20 baseball cricket series thing that happens.

Yes. I am. I mean and crickets needed to do it. You know, I think it was in many ways it needed to refresh. Test Cricket will always be there for the purest few, but unfortunately, they are the minority and at the end of the day we need to keep up with a with the modern times, you know. And we needed to create another product that was going to bring a new audience into the game. And I think it's successfully done that.

Bruce Whitfield: Was cricket in danger of dying?

Um, at a mass level, yes, in my view. I think you'll always find your cricket purists around the world. But I think the thing that scares me is I mean if you want a full a cricket stadium for a test match these days you'd probably need to go to England or Australia where you would see more of it.

And you would need a Proteas England game or a New Zealand or an Australian kind of a game

With good context and that's why I like the ashes series is always well supported. It's England Australia. And for some reason the people can take days off work and go sit for eight hours at a cricket stadium. But you know having played a hundred test myself and grew up loving the game of test Cricket, I've really starting to enjoy the shortened formats and I've got young kids so, you know to get them to go watch 50 other games is unlikely. But I can still, I can still get them to go watch a live 20 over again.

Bruce Whitfield: Are they good at the game to the love the game?

They absolutely love the game of cricket.

Bruce Whitfield: Do they have a choice?

Yes. They do. I'm the modern parent, I give my kids a choice. Yeah, they do have a choice, but I think I've part of formal sport in this country. We've created that a little bit, you know formal sport which has its positives and negatives, but they are at Rondebosch School here in Cape Town and which practice formal sport right from the age of 19 years of age and they take things like cricket and rugby very seriously there that play there in their league systems at under 10 that playing horrible creature from very young age. So, they enjoy it and I guess I'll part of the system more than anything else.

Bruce Whitfield: What is it about cricket that is good for humanity? One looks at for example, the origins of cricket and WG Grace and the legends of cricket and how then colonialism spread cricket into India and Indians are more obsessed about quicker than any other Nation on Earth and I chatted to Jonty Rhodes and he's more well-known in Delhi than his in my mother hears it South Africa. It's an amazing culture.

Maybe he and maybe we could talk into team sports. I think in many ways… and for me growing up sport was part of my education and often what we do special in South Africa. Now, we were dealing with a lot of challenges in the country. We kind of separate that out. We say well education's is key and we need to throw a lot of resource and then we kind of neglect sport. And I'm doing quite a lot of work in Khayelitsha at the moment. Where at 2:30, the kids go home. There is no extramural program that can keep them interested and keep them excited about the day and about what they're doing. I think I learned more from sport than I learned from my academics and the concept and idea of working with other people doing things well and succeeding in community is I think one of the great values that team sports brings. I'll never forget my dad saying to me, when I loved tennis and squash, he said to me you'll get more out of it. You'll get more of a team sport than you will out of an individual and for me. I think there's a lot of values that come out of doing something with a group of people and striving to be better suppose.

Bruce Whitfield: There's nothing stronger than the collaborative force - if you’re on day four of a test and you're an innings down and you're either playing for the draw or you going to make a call to go for the win take the risk of losing it. Can you remember a moment in the dressing room and a three or four? Whereas a team you set thing going? We have to make a decision on how we are going to play this game while names are all on the scoresheet.

Many of those occasions, but I think more importantly you as an individual feel accountable to everyone else. So, you might be in the position where you can actually make a contribution that can turn a game around or save a test match or go on to win a test match

Bruce Whitfield: Or be the one who blows it.

Correct. It's on the other side. The one who actually makes the error that cost you the game.

Bruce Whitfield: You may choose in the semi-final of a World Cup to ru. For example. We don’t hold grudges Mr Donald…

Absolutely. But those are the tough decisions you are confronted with. Because you are accountable to your peers. And I mean they can be as you say no greater force then knowing that you are going into a performance and there's a whole lot of people that are resting on the decisions that you make

Bruce Whitfield: When it comes to South Africa and cricket and race. South African sport divided Cricket particularly for a very long time very little multiracial Cricket in South Africa, and we only really recently seeing a volume of talented young black regulars coming to the team and they're performing at a level which is extraordinary. And it just feels like the great lost opportunity, one of the many lost opportunities for South Africa.

Absolutely. I mean, I, you know. I grew up in the 80s in during Apartheid times. And I just think of the opportunity I got to explore this game and the privilege I got… nothing more simpler than just playing on a good surface. You know, it scares me a little bit when I go into our Township areas and one of our national sports is not been represented at all in one of the biggest townships and Cape Town, you know…

Bruce Whitfield: This was the motivation then few starting the Gary Kirsten Foundation, which is to take Cricket into targets rather than going into townships and scouting for talent caring people who say you look like. You could be a good Cricket. I why don't we bring you into Rondebosch with two Bishops or into one of the Great Schools? Why don't we just say, let's give all kids a chance to sample this game

Correct and specifically in the schools, you know, I think that's where you can where you can drive a lot of new thinking around what you want to do. You know for me in my small way because I think there's a lot of good work going on nationally… And you absolutely right, I mean, I'm very excited by the development of black Cricket is in this country. I think we're moving in the right direction and you've got to commend Cricket South Africa for the work that they've driven that process really hard. But we're in a small region here in Cape Town and I just noticed that in in that region Cricket not being represented at all in the schools. In the clubs yes, but not in the schools. And I think the I think that's a very important point because you know, I want 11-year olds getting excited by the game of cricket.

I mean, it might break times and I'm sure when you will break times particularly, you will break times. Somebody would a piece of chalk and draw on three lines and a war got a tennis ball

Bruce Whitfield: Under stick or a piece of rubber pipe or something and the game would be on you want that happening internships in the way. I've got this image of India where kids make a plan and play cricket in the street.

They play cricket anywhere. Anywhere you go they will be a gamma creating place and we just don't I don't see that enough. But yet we have bro Cricket is slightly more formal in South Africa. So, for me to introduce it into the schools and you create a more formal environment, I don't see a problem with that. You just got to you gotta create the facility. So, we just started building nets. Because that's a starting price is usually one Fields as well. It's difficult to maintain fields in the in the township. So that's why I think artificial is the way to go but then it's expensive. But if you create one school of excellence in a region, you can serve as a whole lot of other schools and that's what excites me is that… you get the facilities on we know we can produce the coaches and then you build a program and then that becomes an example of what you can do. Let's remember that as far as I know. We've only produced One black cricketer to be fully educated in a Township School in this country.

Bruce Whitfield: Who was that?

Mfuneko Ngam in the late 90s. All our other successful black crickets have received scholarships to go to elite cricket schools, which is which is a great story are sporting schools work. Yeah, and they

Bruce Whitfield: Why can't we have more sporting schools.

Yeah, and you know for everyone that gets talented kid that gets a scholarship there's lots of others. Yeah, but aren't getting the same opportunity and Mossad because there are those kids that do get a scholarship a lot of them go on and do really well and make it

Bruce Whitfield: How do you fund a project like this? It takes a lot of money. It takes not only time but a lot of money it takes a lot of collaboration getting lots of different interest groups together getting the buy-in from schools from education departments. Just the politics of it must be quite exciting.

Absolutely, and we've got, and we've had we've had a good experience of that but at the end of the day, I've always believed let's make one work. So, let’s show people that you can build a sporting School of Excellence in the Township's where you can produce really good sportsman out of that school. And that's a non-fee-paying school by the way, but you can you can put down. I mean it's going to cost us six million Rand to build the artificial surface. 6 million, but that that artificial surface is an absolute must you can't play a sport without it.

Bruce Whitfield: No,

I mean if you think about it in rugby, you take football you take cricket you take hockey, you need good surfaces to play on. Bottom line. So, if you can't create that or if you're not building that infrastructure they knew saying hold on. We'll take the talent out of that region and then we'll go find a good school to go allow them to plan a good surface, but you need the infrastructure as a number one priority. We can build a program which we are doing already. So, we've got nets at the five schools we’re involved in. So at least we can have practices taking place. We employ the coaches

Bruce Whitfield: But there's something quite soul-destroying about spending your life practicing never actually going.

You need to have a match absolutely and they do and they we try and create matches wherever we can, but they never played. I'm because there is no field to play them but I think the exciting but is that it is possible because once you see the program running and you see an 11 year old you could be you could you could go to a township school and watching on the eleven practice where there's a proper coaching program taking place. You could be at any and 11 practice in the country because the talents there…

Bruce Whitfield: What is your vision for what you're doing?      

Certainly, that in with it within that in that foundation work is to produce a cricket school of excellence in the townships. So that's cool can compete against any Elite creating School in the country and win. Don't always have to send our kids art to get the scholarship into going to lie schools. It's great for those kids. Yeah, but you take one of the schools in Cape Town for example to put a kid on a full scholarship through five years, including full board and lodging as about half a million ran and put ten in the system…

Bruce Whitfield: That's 12 kids and you can build entire facility for the correct the price of 12 scholarship. Sorry. What does Cricket look like in South Africa 10 years from now

Cricket will never go ends country. I mean if you think about it from 1993 onwards, I mean, we've produced a cricket team that's literally been the top for best cricket teams in the world,

Bruce Whitfield: But never won a World Cup.

Okay. Well, we'll get to that we'll get to that.

Bruce Whitfield: How do we win a World Cup?

We’ll get to that because there's no I don't think is no silver bullet there, but I think the important thing is we always producing good creators. Yeah. And for me, that's very exciting. It's our national sport. We always have a competitive team. We’re seeing a lot more black career that's coming through which is absolute master in this country because now we’re understanding that there's a bigger base of players that we could work with so I get very excited by that, but I think most importantly is we always producing a good cricket team. So, something's working and it has continued to work then the million-dollar question: none of us have the answer for but it's a it'll be great for the most iconic event in created for us to cross the line on that but it's a more complicated issue.

Bruce Whitfield: But to get a team that wins the World Cup changes then the internal dynamic in the country because suddenly a national team wins a game rugby transformed by the Rugby World Cup wins of 95 and 99 absolutely as a result of that Rugby's more inclusive. You need winners to inspire people to participate?

Absolutely. Let's um, let's not get it wrong. I think the team has been a very successful team over many years, but I agree with you that that that trophy kind of galvanizes and a nation in many way as we have seen. You know, I've got a view that we live the expectation too much and maybe it's quite nice when there is no expectation. And I've got a feeling that this tournament more than others, I don't think we've been given much hope to win it. Maybe it's a good thing.

Bruce Whitfield: Well, we live in hope

Keep the expectation low we've got good players. I think we've got a great bowling attack and some and some exciting players and hopefully they don't have this kind of scarring of the of the kind of misdemeanours of the past in World Cups in the chokes as people use it which no one really likes the word… but you know, we can kind of turn this around and go win one

Bruce Whitfield: But it is the ultimate in any endeavour. I mean most games have got a duration of an hour an hour and a half your camera in front of berg recently retired you something for 30 seconds at a time, but it's very quick when you are asking people to collaborate and to work together either in the T20 game couple of hours in the 50 over game slightly longer over five days. There are very few disciplines in the world that require that amount of collaboration and teamwork and focus for an extended period

Absolutely and over nine-months, you know. So, there's a there's an important leadership piece in terms of how you pulled up the culture of the group of people so that at the end of the day every guy can fully give the best version of myself. That's ultimately what you want to do. Everyone needs to be the best that they can be on a day. And for me, building that culture and the leadership that drives that is critical. Because without that guys start to play with fear and when guys play and perform with fear you don't get the best version of that person. But it's difficult because it's all results-based. It's the same as any company when they are, they are accountable to their shareholders bottom line and everyone will come up results everything results everything. If you don't have the results - forget about the internal health of the organization - results are everything. And that's the key and if you become mesmerized into that space with a result is more important that what is the process that you setting up to allow the results to take place? You can have a lot of inconsistency in your performances

Bruce Whitfield: Gary Kirsten, Cricket coach, Founder of the Gary Kirsten Foundation - looking at South Africa's Cricket landscape in a way that is different from many other people and saying, how can we make this game more inclusive? How can we make this game sustainable in South Africa? How do we make more people in South Africa believe in cricket and same way as people on the Indian subcontinent do? Could you just imagine the cricketers we could produce if Gary Kirsten is successful? Today's RMB Solutionist Thinker.