SACA "fully supports" board's transformation policy

The South African Cricketers' Association has clarified that it "fully supports" the national board's transformation policy after its new president, Boeta Dippenaar, said "a lot of patriotism has been lost" due to the same.

"Boeta was recently interviewed in England in his personal capacity as a player who has just been signed by Leicestershire and some of the comments attributed to him could easily be interpreted as being critical in a general sense of transformation in South African cricket," Tony Irish, the SACA's chief executive, said. "The players' association is however fully supportive of transformation in particular where it promotes opportunities for players of colour to compete for selection.

"SACA is therefore fully supportive of policies such as the one which provides that 40% of all professional cricket contracts should be reserved for players of colour."

But the SACA maintained that its stand remained the same with regard to selection to the national team. "Last year the top 25 players in the country mandated SACA to take up the issue of quotas / targets in national team selection and of the involvement of non-selectors in the selection process.

"Since then we have taken a consistent position on these two issues and have dealt with them under the appropriate process before Cricket South Africa's transformation review committee. It is important to understand that these two issues relate specifically to national team selection and that we are otherwise fully behind the other aspects of the existing transformation policy."

Meanwhile, Dippenaar, who has retired from international cricket, also clarified his stand. "I was being interviewed on my personal views relating to a wide range of cricket issues," Dippenaar said. "It was certainly not my intention to generally criticise transformation but I wanted to emphasise that all of us as players at the top level want to be selected on cricketing merit and not for any political reason."