Rajah, the King among them!

Covid took away SA cricket’s best-loved manager, who was popular among Indian and other international teams as well

Some managers of cricket teams are Revered, Respected and Remembered. There is also R for Rajah.

Goolam Rajah, the former South Africa team manager, passed away in Johannesburg on Tuesday; yet another sporting personality to be defeated by Covid-related issues. He was 74. 

Over the years, team managers have been great allies for captains. Australia under Mark Taylor and Steve Waugh had Steve Bernard, who also performed the role of a media manager in the late 1990s. 

There was Wes Hall, who managed the West Indies in the late 1970s and early 1980s. New Zealander Jeff Crowe was a successful team manager too.

Many managers have had an enduring effect on teams. Ian Chappell got along well with Bill Jacobs and Ray Steele although the latter was an integral part of the establishment and staunchly opposed Kerry Packer’s World Series Cricket.

Polly Umrigar was a popular one with BS Bedi’s Indian team in the 1970s while SV ‘Daddy’ Kadam was a hit with the Mumbai team in the same era.

Last October, England’s operations manager Phil Neale quit after 21 years of service and was seen on television managing the New Zealand team in their World Test Championship final against India.

Back to Rajah. His journey with the South African team started in 1991 after he decided to put his pharmacy business second to cricket on the priority list. His 20-year stint coincided with some rough times for South African cricket. By that I chiefly mean, the match fixing controversy involving the late Hansie Cronje in 2000. 

Though Rajah was not involved in drafting press releases, he was in the inner ring of communication between SA board chief Ali Bacher, captain Cronje and coach Bob Woolmer. He was a father figure to the players. A few years before that storm, the South African board was being pressurised by the government to include a certain number of coloured players in their squads and playing XIs. Affirmative action, it was called. 

Cronje was not comfortable with an extended team when he was trying to get a fix on who would travel to England as part of his 1999 World Cup squad. For a triangular series leading up to the World Cup, a squad of 17 as against 15 (which would include one affirmative action player) was picked and the captain was livid. Rajah was around and had more on his plate to make travel and kit arrangements for the bigger squad. Woolmer, who worked closely with Rajah, wrote in Woolmer on Cricket: “A wonderful man, Goolam. He was unfortunately caught inextricably in the middle of this delicate situation. He was a third-generation South African whose great grandfather had come to South Africa as a migrant worker and exercised his right after five years to stay on.”

I enjoyed a fascinating insight into Rajah’s life when I sat with him at Newlands in Cape Town on the eve of the January 2-6, 2007 India vs South Africa Test. He told me that his grandfather came from Gujarat and he could speak fluent Gujarati to Indian players like Irfan Pathan and Munaf Patel.

Rajah was a club level wicketkeeper who studied pharmacy at Leicester University. Whatever international cricket he watched in South Africa was from a special section for coloured people at the Wanderers Stadium in Johannesburg. That section was called The Cage. He witnessed one Test in the 1960s from The Cage and never watched international cricket in his country till South Africa’s readmission into the Test fold in 1992-93.

He never saw South African great Barry Richards bat nor did he watch Peter Pollock (Shawn’s father) bowl but he was at Lord’s when Graeme Pollock batted for the Rest of the World in 1970. 

Our conversation veered towards Cronje, who had passed away nearly five years ago then. “I would never condone what he did [fixing matches] but we all make mistakes,” Rajah told me. Like the world, Rajah didn’t believe it when he heard of Cronje’s act: “When Ali [Bacher] called to tell me about Hansie’s involvement, I told him not to pull my leg. Then, I saw it on the internet.” 

Former all-rounder Dave Callaghan, whose 169 not out against New Zealand in the 1994-95 Mandela Trophy was South Africa’s highest individual score at the time, recalled being given a lift to the hotel by Rajah after his epic knock at Centurion. “The rest of the team left for Johannesburg as I completed my interactions with the media. There was only Goolam and myself and he drove me back to the Sandton Sun hotel. Before reaching our destination, he asked me if I would join him for supper at his house. I was very hungry and agreed. We sat there, enjoying the lovely meal and I was hoping someone would ask me if I wanted a beer, but I then realised I wouldn’t get one at Goolam’s home. When I reached the hotel, I dropped in at the bar for a beer and I discovered I had some company—the New Zealand cricket team. So, I celebrated my knock with them but what stood out with Goolam was that he cared for all the players. He looked after everything for us,” recalled Callaghan.

Considering the warm tributes paid to Rajah, it was no surprise for Callaghan to see the South African players wearing armbands in their T20 international against the West Indies at St George’s. The ticker on top of the screen which mentioned Rajah’s demise was a nice touch too. 

Not everything that Cronje said in the match fixing controversy could be taken as the truth. But when Rajah met him over tea at George 10 days before his June 2002 death, he told him: “You are the best manager in the world. Keep going.”

mid-day’s group sports editor Clayton Murzello is a purist with an open stance. He tweets @ClaytonMurzello

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The views expressed in this column are the individual’s and don’t represent those of the paper.

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