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 | |  Friday, 7 December, 2001, 15:09 GMT South Africa face selection dilemma  Cricketer Ntini has become a political football South Africa's racially-influenced selection policy is again in the spotlight ahead of the Test series in Australia. Neil Manthorp reports from Perth for BBC Sport Online. South Africa's tour of Australia is threatening to stumble from one distraction to another. Just days after "Hansie Cronje" appeared in bold type across the country's newspapers, the subject of the team's selection policy grabbed media headlines. Four years ago, South Africa's United Cricket Board adopted a series of quotas for domestic cricket designed to have at least a third of the nation's cricketers as 'non-white'. Provinces are currently required to field three black or coloured cricketers in every match and next season, the year of the World Cup, the quota will be four. But the national team has no specific quota imposed on it apart from a loose agreement that the test and one-day sides "will be a team of colour".
In the last two years the South African side has included two non-white cricketers on a regular basis leading to speculation that the country's sports minister - Ngconde Balfour - had insisted that a "black African" be included. On the one ocassion that South Africa did field 10 white players in recent times, in the fiffth Test against the West Indies in Antigua in March, Balfour was furious. He told parliament that he would have to consider introducing legislation to prevent certain sports bodies from "sticking to the minimum quota." Loss of form The only black African player in the current squad is fast bowler Makhaya Ntini, while the coloured Herschelle Gibbs has been in such tremendous form this year - scoring over 1000 runs since January - that his place in the starting line-up has become automatic. Ntini, however, is suffering a dip in form leading to speculation that one of two unpleasant options may arise. Either the team incurs the wrath of the sports minister or Ntini is included in the starting XI despite his squad rivals, Steve Elworthy and Mornantau Hayward, being in better form. UCB president Percy Sonn, however, moved quickly on Friday to quash rumours that government had any say in team selection and also reaffirmed the Board's policy on racial quotas.
"We are an independent body and we receive no money from government so we are not reliant or dependent on them," Sonn said. "South African cricket must represent South African society and it is enshrined in the UCB constitution that we are a non-racial body that cannot, and will not, discriminate against anyone on the basis of their skin colour. "However, we also have a clause in our constitution that commits us to rectifying the wrongs of the past and advantaging the previously disadvantaged. "We are committed to selecting at least one player of colour in the national team and that is quite clear. Sticking to the rules "There is no dispute about what 'colour' means, especially in South Africa. Colour means everyone who was classified as non-white in the old regime," said Sonn who, like Gibbs, was classified as 'coloured'. So, the million dollar question causing all the fuss in Australia at the moment is how would the UCB - and more importantly, the government - react if Ntini was replaced by a white player for the first test in Adelaide? "The government may groan about it but 'one player of colour' means exactly that. If Mr Balfour is upset about it then so be it," added Sonn. "He was upset when Makhaya was left out of the fourth Test in the West Indies but that was it - it happened because Makhaya wasn't the best person for the job at that time."
If the selectors follow tradition, however, there may be no groaning to be done by anyone. "We have a policy of allowing players to play themselves back in form in the team and not casting them aside to rot on the sidelines. Remember Gary Kirsten's run of form before he scored 275?" Sonn asked. Opener Kirsten suffered an appalling run of scores in 1999 before equalling the South African test record in the third of five test against England. While Sonn's comments may earn the UCB president a "frank exchange of views" with Balfour in the coming days, his support has been welcomed by the team, currently in Perth playing against Western Australia. "We want to beat Australia - we want to win all our matches, that is the bottom line," said Sonn. | |
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