Key Sentence:
- Johannesburg: Tammy Tsolekile told a Social Justice and Nation Building hearing Monday.
- That former Proteas captain Graham Smith never wanted him on the men’s side.
Tsolekile’s testimony is one of the most competent SJN lawyers, Dumisa Ntsebeza, and his two assistants Fumisa Ngkele and Sandile Yuli, who have ever heard.
They included Tsolekile to discuss how he and his teammates slept on the kitchen floor as an under-13 in the Western Province. At the same time, white players had more comfortable accommodation, and how he and other Black African players had been discriminated against during national training—the late 1990s.
However, his testimony of Smith, who Tsolekile led at the U19 World Cup, is most impressive as Tsolekile, illustrating how he believes Smith prevented him from establishing himself as an international. Andrew Hudson and Linda Zondi as evidence of this belief.
Referring to New Zealand’s two home test series in January 2013, Tsolekile said Hudson promised him that he would play. In early 2012, Mark Boucher had a career ended in England with an eye injury, and Tsolekile flew in to provide cover. However, on tour later that year, with part of the Colequille team in Australia, he was ignored by AB de Villiers wherever he wanted to play.
After this draw, Hudson promised that Tsolekile would get a chance to start a new test in the next home series against New Zealand. “In 2012, Andrew Hudson came to me and said I would play in New Zealand. The night before the game, Hudson called me and said in his own words that Graham Smith didn’t want me on his team.”
De Villiers holds the door for this series.
Zondi, who first became a national selection committee member in 2013 and later organizer, told Tsolekile similarly, though the former doorman did not say precisely when it happened. When asked by Ntzebeza why he seemed so hostile towards her, Tsolekile said he didn’t know. “Graham Smith is a great captain for our country. But, in my opinion, this guy gets too much power from the CSA and his teammates.”