Abstract
This article contextualizes South Africa’s men’s cricket test team’s historic victory in the third edition of the ICC World Test Championship and its embodiment of social justice. By positioning this win, achieved under the leadership of a black African, Temba Bavuma, within the post-colonial Indian setting, the article argues that South Africa’s previous failures in ICC tournaments have been deliberately promoted within the dominant discourse by Hindu right-wing and upper-caste elites to undermine affirmative action, such as reservations. However, Bavuma’s success under the quota policy has challenged the narrative that affirmative action undermines meritocracy, thereby sparking a renewed debate around reservation in Indian cricket. Especially with the Indian government’s plan to conduct a caste-based census in 2026, the upcoming Bihar state election offers an opportunity for socialist leaders across the political spectrum, such as Nitish Kumar, Tejashwi Yadav and Prashant Kishore, to popularize the discourse around reservation in cricket in a genuine effort to achieve complete social equity from this land of social justice movement.
The narrative that resonates with everyone when we hear the biblical story of David and Goliath is its embodiment of agency, symbolism and resistance, which inspires the underdogs to believe in dismantling power dynamics across the sociopolitical and cultural arena. The victory of the underdogs, as seen in the story of David, is viewed here as an assertion of social justice—a belief in their courage as subjugated individuals to overturn the status quo, leading to the fall of the mighty Goliath.
Especially in the context of cricket, underdog achievements from any part of the world are not only compared to the David versus Goliath tale, but in a cricket-mad country like India, people emotionally connect with the narrative and the team that is perceived as powerless or less balanced in cricketing terms. One reason Indian spectators passionately cheer for the overlooked challengers—despite the absence of their own team—lies in the psychological imprint of colonial history, which has left the post-colonial identity feeling ‘inferior’ (Sinha, 2020).
This sense of inferiority, however, is addressed through the game of cricket, which ironically embodies the British imperial past yet simultaneously provides an avenue for resistance and reassertion that challenges its subservient history. Due to this duality, when Sourav Ganguly waved his t-shirt after the NatWest win, or Kapil Dev lifted the 1983 World Cup trophy at Lord’s, these performative gestures were not merely about celebrating victory; their semiotics were multilayered, particularly reflecting India as an underdog who equally belongs to this game, which was mostly considered as a feudal, elite white sport.
Similarly, when Temba Bavuma led the South African men’s cricket team to victory in the third edition of the World Test Championship (WTC) at Lord’s on 13 June, defeating the formidable Australian team captained by Pat Cummins—thanks to an impressive 136 from Aiden Markram—Indians felt a collective visceral pride—as if it were not just the Proteas who ended the 27-year drought of ICC major trophy victories, but a historical triumph of a shared, undying spirit that has given rise to another underdog narrative, filled with struggle and glory.
However, for Indians, reducing the significance of Temba Bavuma lifting the mace as the first black African captain of South Africa’s national test team to collective pride oversimplifies the nuances that the rainbow nation has strategically embedded in achieving social justice within its cricket structure. To genuinely appreciate this achievement of South Africa, it is essential to recognize the steps they have taken in transforming cricket from a jingoistic emblem of national pride to an avenue of social equity. This includes affirmative action such as the quota system that allows the inclusion of two black Africans in the playing 11 of national and provincial teams, which were historically monopolized by whites during the apartheid period. 1
Furthermore, as these structural transformations do not yield results overnight, a pertinent challenge faced by South Africa was constant criticism for sidelining merit—a topic we will explore in detail in the next section. Consequently, for Indian spectators, policymakers and the cricket board, now is the right time to engage in discourse regarding the implementation of ST/SC reservations in the Indian cricket team if they truly believe in South Africa’s inclusive victory. With the Indian government planning to conduct a caste census in 2026, and as previously mentioned, affirmative actions such as reservations require time to yield results and sensitivity regarding the topic of inclusivity; thus, the discourse surrounding lower-caste reservations in Indian cricket has never been more significant.
Quota Policy and Its Criticism
It is fair to assert that ever since South Africa made a return to international cricket in 1992, the team has had to deal with constant criticism of accommodating ethnic minorities at the cost of merit through the quota-based affirmative actions.
Particularly, the knock-out results in ICC tournaments did not favour them, despite having one of the most exceptional cricketing squads over the past 30 years, which included legends such as AB de Villiers and Jacques Kallis, leading to the label of ‘Chokers’. Furthermore, the fact that white players signing Kolpak 2 deals to play for English counties and talents such as Grant Elliott and Roelof van der Marwe leaving the country to pursue their cricketing ambitions elsewhere—with the former moving to New Zealand and the latter to the Netherlands—has long subjected South African policymakers to scrutiny regarding their broader quota policy objectives.
Notably, the exodus of flamboyant Kavin Pietersen—who later went on to captain the England men’s team in all formats—and his open criticism of South Africa’s approach towards the quota system as a strategy to satisfy political ego, reignited the long-standing debate on merit versus racial equity. As Pietersen asserted:
I was dropped because the quota system was brought into South African cricket to positively discriminate in favour of ‘players of colour’ and to fast-track the racial integration of cricket in the country. To me, every single person in this world needs to be treated exactly the same and that should have included me, as a promising 20-year-old cricketer. If you do well you should play on merit. That goes for any person of any colour. It was heartbreaking. (ESPNcricinfo, 2006)
There is no denying that Kevin Pietersen’s departure hurt South Africa, and simultaneously, it was a substantial gain for England, as he contributed to their reclaiming the prestigious Ashes in the renowned 2005 series, ending England’s 18-year drought. However, Kevin Pietersen’s explanation for leaving South Africa because of positive discrimination reflects a form of racial blindness and ignorance towards the long-standing systemic privilege that has historically favoured white players. Additionally, such a narrative undermines the legitimacy of affirmative action policies and further fosters self-doubt among cricketers from ethnic minorities, leading them to question whether they are selected on merit or quotas. This uncertainty about their own talent is what Karl Marx, within the context of power relations, called ‘false consciousness’, as it denies psychological safety while turning the oppressed into critics of the very reforms intended to emancipate them (Jost, 1995).
This visible manifestation of false consciousness among black African cricketers grew significantly due to repeated losses in ICC tournaments, and the narrative to challenge the affirmative policy gained a collective momentum after the 2015 Men’s Cricket World Cup semi-final defeat, during which the South African team was compelled to drop their in-form fast bowler Kyle Abbott to include an injured black African player, Vernon Philander, under the quota policy.
Interestingly, this decision and the alleged claims that South Africa lost due to the implementation of affirmative action have also gained vocal support within India’s traditional media and digital platforms. The right-wing and upper-caste Hindu elites seized this narrative to further spread their caste bigotry by countering the discourse on reservations in Indian cricket, while drawing a parallel with South Africa’s defeat in yet another ICC tournament. However, this counter-narrative propagated by caste-blinded commentators reveals that the work discussing the under-representation of lower castes in cricket—including the research of historian Ramchandra Guha (1997), Amrit Dhillon (2018) and the seminal paper by Gaurav Bhawnani and Shubham Jain (2018), which argues that in the 85-year test history, only four Dalit individuals have represented India—has pressured Hindu conservatives by threatening their systematic privilege. For them, the defeat of South Africa was a catalyst to maintain this privilege by sustaining the binary between merit and reservation.
Therefore, at Lords, when Temba Bavuma raised the mace, he silenced not only the critics of the quota policy in South Africa but also the opponents of reservation in India, who have long used the Proteas’ defeats to propagate their vile narrative that reservation undermines merit, without recognizing their own positionality and how the process of genuine reforms may be slow but ultimately leads to an inclusive future.
An Inclusive Indian Cricket
As highlighted above, the discourse around reservations in Indian cricket has largely been subjugated by citing South Africa’s failure in ICC tournaments or through counter-stories, such as M. S. Dhoni’s ascent from a tier-two city, which highlights the democratization of cricket under the rhetoric of meritocracy. There is no denying that the stories of individuals such as M. S. Dhoni, Rinku Singh and Yashasvi Jaiswal are inspiring; however, these stories have been popularized within dominant discourse as a counter-narrative to overshadow the lack of representation from the Dalit community within the Indian cricketing structure.
Fortunately, Bavuma’s success has reshaped the narrative of meritocracy and affirmative policy, particularly in the Indian context, reigniting the dialogue on social justice. While it would be overly idealistic to expect an overnight structural transformation from a capitalist cricketing institution like the BCCI, the discourse surrounding reservation at state-level cricket could serve as an initial step.
The initial dialogue of reservations at the state level of cricket could provide a feasible option for cricketers from marginalized communities and enable state administrations to create a psychologically safe space early in the players’ careers, ensuring that, under the false consciousness that reservations undermine merit, they do not devalue their talent.
As observed with the South African cricket team, where the result did not go in their favour, the manifestation of false consciousness is a common attribute among subaltern members for whom affirmative actions have been introduced. Even within India’s education system, where nearly 23% of institutional seats are reserved for the ST/SC community—measures introduced to address the structural inequality embedded in the century-old caste system—the affirmative policies aimed at establishing social equality and redressing the under-representation of lower castes in education and government services often fail to create a psychologically safe space within these institutions. Especially in urban educational centres, the denial of systematic privilege by upper-caste elites further contributes to the subjugation of Dalit and Adivasi students, whose intellectual abilities are frequently questioned. The tragic death of Dalit scholar Rohit Vemula in 2016 at the University of Hyderabad highlighted how institutional humiliation persists, showing that affirmative policies without a psychologically safe environment are insufficient to transcend the binary of merit versus reservation (The Wire, 2019).
Thus, the state cricket board, by drawing lessons from South Africa’s quota policy case study and the failure of affirmative action in Indian universities to prevent affective and symbolic violence against lower-caste groups, could initiate dialogue while emphasizing players’ psychological safety over the implementation of reservation, ensuring that structural reforms do not become tokenistic. Additionally, early-stage mentorship for young state-level cricketers may help them understand why representation from marginalized communities matters, which could normalize dialogue on social equity in cricketing culture; transcend the merit/reservation binary, and, if successful, the same template could be used within the Indian cricket national team for its inclusive future.
However, as argued above, BCCI, within its capitalist framework, will likely hinder its 38 associated state boards from initiating this transformative dialogue. To commence this conversation, the pressure should come from below as a collective voice, and I believe Bihar is one of those states where such pressure can be built on its state board to spark a discussion on reservation in cricket. However, the question might be: Why Bihar?
Why Bihar?
The case for lauding Bihar as a state to promote discussion on reservation in cricket, with the Bihar Cricket Association (BCA) taking initial steps, holds both cricketing and historical significance.
Whether it is the political scientist Christopher Jaffrelot (2003) or the anthropologist Jeffroy Witsoe (2013), they both, in their pivotal work, have argued that for mass movements and the voices of the subalterns emerging from the bottom of segregated caste society, Bihar as a politically conscious state has played a significant role, tracing back to Mahatma Gandhi’s ‘Champaran Movement’ in 1917. Moreover, to further position itself as a voice for the marginalized section, the role of Bihar in Jayaprakash Narayan’s (JP) mass mobilization against Indira Gandhi’s authoritarian regime, as well as in the institutionalization of the Mandal Commissions in the early 1990s, the state has systematically built its reputation as an epicentre for a substantial socio-justice movement.
Even when considering cricket, Bihar does not carry the same legacy as Delhi or Mumbai teams. Apparently, after an 18-year hiatus, Bihar re-entered the Ranji circuit in 2018–2019, providing the state with an opportunity to implement mentorship workshops, anti-bias programmes, seminars on psychological safety and comprehensive discussions on reservation without hesitation in its pursuit of the Ranji Trophy.
Hence, as noted earlier, with the central government planning to conduct a caste census in 2026, fostering discussions on reservation in cricket at the state level during the forthcoming Bihar elections—usually centred on identity politics—could prove to be pivotal. The current Chief Minister, Nitish Kumar; opposition leader Tejashwi Yadav (a former cricketer); and the rising prominence of Prashant Kishore, who all have consistently highlighted the significance of caste in Bihar during their political rallies, present a fertile ground—considering historical relevance, cricketing significance and the political landscape—to integrate this demand into their manifestos and promote a more inclusive cricketing future that reflects social justice, rooted in this land of social movements.
Conclusion
South Africa’s triumph in the WTC under the black African captain Temba Bavuma highlights that affirmative actions, such as the quota policy—a euphemism for ethnic reservation—may be a slow process of change, but when successful, they represent social justice and inclusive cricket. However, what we can learn from the Indian context, considering South Africa’s persistence with affirmative policy despite not seeing favourable results for a long time, is that overcoming systematic barriers such as racial and caste segregation requires more than reformist policy—it demands psychological safety so that athletes from marginalized communities do not develop false consciousness and devalue their talent under the binary of meritocracy and quota/reservation policy.
Especially in India’s higher education system, the persistent presence of false consciousness is a clear issue, leading to the ongoing stigmatization of lower castes as lacking merit. This stigma persists as part of the dominant discourse, rendering reservation policies appear more like token gestures than meaningful reforms. Hence, the victory of South Africa has encouraged the pursuit of dialogue on reservations in Indian cricket, where the discourse should not be limited to the implementation of reform but should also emphasize the psychological safety of marginalized athletes. The ideal platform to initiate this dialogue should be the state cricketing board, such as the BCA, given Bihar’s history and political landscape, which is renowned for its commitment to social equity.
Moreover, considering cricketing significance, Bihar has re-entered the Ranji circuit after an 18-year hiatus. It is one of those rare cricketing boards at the state level where there is scope to discuss how to bring about social reform without being burdened by the expectations of winning the prestigious Ranji Trophy. This lack of expectation from the Bihar cricket team is a blessing in disguise, as it allows for the initiation of dialogue on reservation by organizing mentorship and anti-bias workshops that may help young athletes understand the importance of social equity in cricket.
Most importantly, as Bihar approaches its state election, which revolves around identity politics, the idea of starting a dialogue on reservation in cricket should act as a political catalyst for all leaders to mobilize the masses and pressure the state board to begin this discussion and implement this reform. Particularly after South Africa’s victory, given Bihar’s political awareness, I would not be surprised if native spectators, political parties and the board succeed in initiating a conversation on reservation in the coming years; there could be a Dalit or an Adivasi cricketer from Bihar who will lift the ICC Trophy for India from the iconic Lord’s balcony, just like Bavuma did for South Africa.