Cricket South Africa appoints Enoch Nkwe as Director of Cricket

The former South African assistant coach Enoch Nkwe has been appointed as the new Director of Cricket. He will replace Graeme Smith whose tenure prematurely concludes due to racism allegations.

Newly appointed director of cricket, Enoch Nkwe was active in domestic cricket from 2002 to 2009. He played for Lions and Gauteng. He was featured in 38 List A, and 42 FC matches in his domestic cricket career.

Later he had to leave cricket due to a hand injury. He joined as a coach and achieved much success. Nkwe helped Highveld Lions to reach the CSA T20 Challenge and first-class competition titles in 2018.

He also coached Jozi Stars for the inaugural Mzansi Super League title. He was working as the interim director with the team and was demoted as assistant head coach for the South African national team in 2019.

Proteas Mark Boucher maintained that he shares a healthy relationship with Nkwe and he has no issues in reporting to the newly appointed director. Both share a very good bonding.

In a recent update, Graeme Smith has been cleared of racism allegations on the grounds of inappropriate evidence/lack of evidence. (Two independent arbitrators: Adv Michael Bishop and Adv Ngwako Maenetje SC)

The arbitration had been emanated from Cricket South Africa’s Social Justice and Nation Building process. The verdict of the arbitration award is : There was no evidence to conclude that Mr Smith was involved in racial discrimination against Thani Tsolekile during the timeline 2012 to 2014.

There was no evidence for allegations of racial comments in CSA. There is no substantial evidence in support of the claim that Mr Smith was biased against the black community and black leader.

There is also no evidence of racial favouritism while selecting Nkwe in place of Boucher for the director post. Boucher is the head coach of Cricket South Africa.

In addition to Nkwe, CSA has also announced the selection of three other board members who will serve on the organization’s executive committee.

Wanele Mngomezulu joins as the Chief Marketing Officer, replacing Mtunzi Jonas as the Chief Commercial Officer. Tjaart van der Walt has been named as the Chief Financial Officer.

The Director of Cricket will start working on July 1, 2022, while the other three Executives will start on August 1, according to a CSA release.