Protestors demonstrating in support of Jewish cricketer David Teeger outside the headquarters of Cricket South Africa. Photo: Ilan Ossendryver

Brandishing signs declaring “He’s My Captain,” “Stop Racism in Sport” and “No Place for Antisemitism,” hundreds of demonstrators converged on the Johannesburg headquarters of Cricket South Africa (CSA) on Thursday to demand the reinstatement of David Teeger as captain of the national U-19 team, one week after he was stripped of the post amid accusations of antisemitism.

An observant Jew who made his professional cricket debut in 2023, Teeger was removed from the captain’s position by the CSA Board on the eve of the Cricket World Cup, which is being hosted by South Africa and begins on Friday. Explaining its decision, CSA cited “security concerns” around Teeger’s very presence, insisting that removing him from the captaincy — but not the team — allayed the risk of violent pro-Hamas demonstrations at World Cup matches that might potentially endanger the team, spectators and Teeger himself.

However, this reasoning was dismissed as a “ruse” by the South African Jewish Board of Deputies (SAJBD) following its meeting with CSA earlier this week, charging that the body, which governs cricket operations across the country, had displayed “pure antisemitism” in removing Teeger as captain.

“They tried to get David to step down voluntarily, saying ‘it’ll be hard for you.’ He refused and that’s when they stripped him,” Zev Krengel — the SAJBD’s vice-president — stated at an online press conference on Tuesday. Krengel also emphasized that Teeger had been cleared of the charge of bringing CSA into disrepute by an independent investigation following a speech he gave at a Jewish communal awards ceremony in the wake of the Oct. 7 Hamas pogrom in southern Israel, in which he lauded “the State of Israel and every single soldier fighting so that we can live and thrive in the diaspora.”

At Tuesday’s protest, demonstrators led boisterous chants of “We want Teeger!” and “David! David!” Among the speakers at the event was South African Zionist Federation (SAZF) vice-president Avrom Krengel, who told the crowd, “We need to take back cricket and our country from people who do not represent us anymore.”

CSA remained unmoved by the protest, however. “Cricket South Africa finds the accusations of antisemitism leveled against it by the SA Jewish Board of Deputies as without any basis and rejects them with the contempt they deserve,”a spokesperson for the CSA board told CNN on Thursday.

As part of its effort to secure Teeger’s reinstatement as team captain for a tournament that involves the participation of 16 nations, the SAJBD on Wednesday wrote to Greg Barclay — chair of the International Cricket Council (ICC), the sports’ international governing body — asserting that “CSA categorically failed to provide any credible evidence that there had been any real security threats to the upcoming tournament due to David Teeger being captain of the SA team.”

The letter went on to state that “taking into account the strong possibility of political interference on the part of the South African government being involved, one is all but forced to conclude that David Teeger was stripped of his captaincy due to his being a Jewish person who at a private Jewish communal event had expressed support for the State of Israel and its armed forces following the 7 October terror attacks against the country and the ongoing war resulting from that.”

It emphasized again that Teeger was removed “despite an independent investigation initiated by CSA itself and conducted by the eminent Advocate Wim Trengove having found that Teeger had not contravened CSA’s code of conduct.”

The ICC’s current position is that it is unable to step into the controversy.

“Team selection including captaincy is an issue for members and not the ICC,” an ICC spokesperson said on Tuesday. “An international federation is not constituted to intervene in team selections.”