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Graeme Pollock bemoans political interference in SA team selections

by Cricbuzz Staff • Last updated on

"The major thing is the problem with the politics and interference with the selection of players," Pollock said. © Getty

Even as skipper Faf du Plessis claimed that transformation policy can be no excuse for South Africa to play poor cricket, former batsmen Graeme Pollock said the team will become a mediocre Test side in the future if they continue selecting teams based on racial reasons rather than cricketing ones.

"The major thing is the problem with the politics and interference with the selection of players," Pollock told AFP on Thursday (July 13) at a meeting of cricket enthusiasts in London, the statement coming at the back of South Africa's 211-run defeat against England in the first Test at Lord's.

"It's affecting the performance of the side - they don't put the 11 best players on the field," he added. "It's never going to change. As South Africans, we've got to accept that South Africa are going to be middle of the road in their future Test cricket."

The decision to have a strict quota on the selection of coloured cricketers came after the end of apartheid, to make cricket, like other sports, more inclusive for people across the South African society, which wasn't the case earlier. During Pollock's time, only white players could represent the country, much like the other social privileges they enjoyed in the country.

The legendary southpaw admits that players of his era (in the 1960s and 1970s) could have done much more to help their non-white counterparts, but believes the balance has now swung too far in the opposite direction after South Africa "got it right when Graeme Smith was captain".

"We had a walk off in 1971 (during Transvaal vs Rest of South Africa match) and we were told 'stick to cricket'. We genuinely wanted to try to do something. But overall... we didn't do enough. Absolutely, definitely."

As per Cricket South Africa's transformation policy defined last September, the national team, on an average and across formats, must include six non-white players of which two must be black African. The policy is stricter at the domestic level, where every team must include six non-whites and three blacks for each game. This policy has in turn, not allowed the best eleven to take field and resulted in lower quality of cricket at the domestic level.

Citing the example of Heino Kuhn, who scored one and nine at the Lord's Test, Pollock said, "You are going to pick a guy like Heino Kuhn, the opening batsman, who got a couple of hundreds in first-class cricket. He's not good enough to play Test cricket."

"The guys are playing in a bad standard of first-class cricket in South Africa because of the politics and interference in selection."

While not only are South Africa failing to play their best side due to the transformation policy, several cricketers, at the peak of their careers, are forced to give up their dreams of playing for their country and instead sign Kolpak deals to secure themselves financially.

© Cricbuzz

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