Cricket South Africa have done it again!
Because of their self-imposed quoata of 'black' players, Cricket SA have dropped fiery fast bowler Andre Nel and named Charl Langeveldt in his place for the upcoming tour to India. Now Nel clearly is the incumbent player and has the record to maintain his position. Langeveldt is a very good player as well, but does not have the test record. He still represents the Proteas, very capably, in the shortened version of the game.
Nel is pissed off. And so is Langeveldt who has withdrawn from the series as he does not want to be seen as a 'quota' player, and who can blame him. Both players are now reconsidering their cricketing futures - which is looking more and more like representing various counties as so many other South Africans do.
Monde Zondeki, a much 'darker' player than Langeveldt, has been called up as a replacement. Zondeki is a fine player but not quite up the standard of Langeveldt or Nel. He is a good prospect for the future and I wish him well, but he is not quite up there yet - especially for a hard tour to the Indian subcontinent.
So President of SA cricket, Norman Arendse, and the CEO, Gerald Majola have fcuked up the Proteas' chance of becoming No 2 in test cricket - to add to their No 1 position in ODI's. The last time they were No 2 (second to the Aussies) they were hoping to beat Aus in Aus, and ended up having a disasterous tour - mainly because of political 'selections' of the teams on the day of play which created such disharmony amongst the players and cost Shaun Pollock his captaincy. It has taken 4 - 5 years under Smith's captaincy to claw their way back to be able to challenge for the second spot.
All this is so unnecessary as the Proteas have being doing very well with their integration of the team. Herschelle Gibbs, Mkahya Ntini and Hashim Amla self-select themselves, and with classy players like Langeveldt, Zondi, Pietersen getting the occasional game in the test arena, the future for players of colour looks good.
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