Cricket legend Makhaya Ntini has challenged new Minister of Sports, Arts and Culture Gayton McKenzie to walk the talk and do better than previous ministers by helping bring to life boxing and cricket, especially in Eastern Cape.
Eastern Cape is famous for producing some of the best boxing and cricket stars such as Ali “Rush Hour” Funeka, Simphiwe “Golden Master” Nongqayi, Lonwabo Tsotsobe, and Ntini himself, to mention but a few.
Ntini has always had a dream to build an academy that would help unearth the next generation of black cricketers in the country.
However, his dream of an academy has remained just that, a dream, due to insufficient backing from the government, he has said.
“When you’re talking about the Eastern Cape, the home of boxing and home of cricket, and the academy, there hasn’t been progress in the last couple of years under the previous ministers.
“Former ministers Fikile Mbalula and Ngconde Balfour, all sang the same song but there’s absolutely nothing that has happened with whatever that they said and that is my worry.
“You know when someone’s saying we want to bring Makhaya Ntini’s academy to a reality, and then I look to those before them, there’s nothing that has happened because it would be nice to plough back into the young kids of the Eastern Cape because they’re hungry – they want to play the game of cricket and have a place that they can call home.”
Ntini has since expressed his concerns about the deliverables that were not met by the previous ministers and urged the outspoken McKenzie not to climb on the bandwagon.
“The worry that I have is that every single minister, whenever they get to the position, they sing the same song, and nothing gets done,” Ntini said.
“If I retired in 2010, and I had started my initiative five years before I retired, and there’s nothing that has happened in terms of support, then that should tell you something.
“For instance, the new minister now is talking about bringing spinning into sport and I wonder if whatever that he says could actually happen.”
