Cricket SA ombud Ntsebeza defends Adams for not testifying against Boucher: 'I can't agree more'

Advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, Cricket South Africa's (CSA) transformation ombudsman who presided over last year's Social Justice and Nation-Building (SJN) hearings, firmly believes Paul Adams is blameless for his refusal to testify in Mark Boucher's defunct disciplinary hearing.

The former left-arm unorthodox spinner, who played 45 Tests between 1995 and 2004, proved the catalyst for CSA's sanctioning of the Proteas' head coach after stating during his testimony at last year's forum that Boucher was one of his national team-mates to use the "brown sh***" slur in team song sung during fines meetings.

Boucher issued an apology to Adams in an affidavit.

Sport24 previously reported that this revelation was to be CSA's primary charge at the hearing.

But CSA's case collapsed once Adams announced in a statement last Sunday that "[it] is not my job or desire to find Mark Boucher guilty or not guilty and to be cross-examined and turned into the main focus of attention. Therefore I will not be testifying at Mark Boucher's upcoming disciplinary hearing".

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With the local governing body unable to legally compel witnesses to testify at the hearing, they were at the mercy of Adams and former Proteas assistant coach Enoch Nkwe - whose resignation last year instigated proceedings against Boucher - stepping up willingly.

'You can't blame Paul'

"We were relying on the fact that witnesses would come forward and that would have included Paul and Enoch. They indicated that they were not willing to testify," Lawson Naidoo, CSA's chairperson, confirmed to Sport24, prompting legal representatives to advise the federation that the charges