CSA to provide new recording of national anthem

Cricket South Africa (CSA) is to provide the organisers with a new copy of the country's national anthem for playing before their World Cup matches after the fiasco during their opening match.

The International Cricket Council (ICC) had to apologise to CSA and the Proteas players for the technical fault that caused the National Anthem to be cut short before the start of their match against the West Indies in New Delhi, on Thursday.

"We realised that the anthem was of poor quality and we will make sure that a better quality version is used for all of our matches going forward," said South Africa team manager Dr. Mohammed Moosajee.

"The International Cricket Council has apologised to the team on behalf of the host union and have stressed that this will not happen again, going forward," Moosajee added in a statement released by CSA.

The South African anthem, introduced at the advent of democracy in 2004, starts off in indigenous African languages, and continues with Afrikaans and English sections of the old anthem.

The South African anthem is a very sensitive issue among people back home because of its original intent to unite the different sections of the population.

Leaving out the latter sections of the anthem at public events had even angered no less than the iconic leader Nelson Mandela, who had insisted on the retention of the sections from the old anthem as part of the reconciliation of the former ruling white minority and the majority Black community of South Africa.

During a memorial service for the Transvaal Indian Congress leader Molvi Saloojee few years ago, Mandela had chided a singer, who started off the proceedings by singing only the African language parts of the anthem.

"That is not our national anthem!" that was how an angry Mandela had started off his keynote address at the service.