OWN CORRESPONDENT, Cape Town | Thursday 5.00pm.
BLACK fast bowler Walter Masimula lined up for a combined provincial team against the touring England side in Centurion Thursday as a new race row hit South African cricket.
There was an outcry when only white players were picked to represent a combined Gauteng and Northerns XI against England in the tourists final warm-up match before the first Test starting in Johannesburg on November 25.
Sports minister Ngconde Balfour said the selection was “totally unacceptable” and demanded a meeting with officials of the United Cricket Board of South Africa.
In a statement issued Thursday, a transformation monitoring committee set up by the UCB after similar disputes over selection during the series against the West Indies last season, condemned “dinosaur thinking in cricket”.
UCB managing director Ali Bacher responded on Thursday by saying that there was poor communication.
Bacher intervened personally when one of the originally selected players, David Townsend, withdrew because of injury and was replaced by another white cricketer, former one-day international fast bowler Rudi Bryson.
“That wasn’t acceptable,” said Bacher, who defended the original selection.
“Townsend was a fringe international player but Bryson is no longer a contender for a place in the national side. I spoke to the presidents of the two provinces and they agreed to bring in Masimula, who is a highly promising young bowler.”
“The national selectors specifically requested that five players, two from the Test side and three from the South Africa A team, be included in the combined XI because they wanted to see them in action against England before finalising their team for the first Test,” said Bacher.
“Although it is a firm policy of the United Cricket Board that all provincial teams include black players, it would have been unfair to have left fringe Test players out of a very strong, near international strength combined team to conform to this policy.
“None of the black players in contention had produced sufficiently good results.”
Sports minister Balfour, meanwhile, described the original selection as “a slap down for those black players in Gauteng and Northerns who have represented their respective provinces.”
Bacher responded: “We are keen to have a good working relationship with the minister but it is disappointing that he has made these public remarks without first discussing his concerns directly with the UCB.” — AFP