Well, we all knew it was true but finally someone from within the Proteas set-up has come out and said it – there was political meddling in team selection before the Proteas World Cup semi-final clash against New Zealand on March 24. We brought you the story last month, but we now have this to go on.

Mike Horn, the man tasked with motivating the team during the tournament, confirmed to EWN that there had been messages received that demanded a selection ‘rethink’:

…the team was indeed changed from the one that was originally selected for the game, flying in the face of what’s been publicly stated.

“What actually happened was the team [picked for the semi-final] was the team that played against Sri Lanka. We’re not going into any politics, but it had a role to play. I had to do a little bit of talk to the guys after the team was selected and a little bit of energy was taken away from the quarterfinals where the right team played.

This seems to confirm the rumours that Cricket SA CEO Haroon Lorgat told coach Russell Domingo to pick either Farhaan Berhardien or Vernon Philander ahead of Rilee Rossouw or Kyle Abbot respectively.

As it transpired the in-form Abbott was dropped and an unfit Philander took his place, leaking 52 runs off his eight overs. No blame should be placed at the feet of Philander, of course, but both Lorgat and Fikile Mbalula come out looking like absolute cretins. Here are the statements they released in the wake of the controversy breaking. Lorgat up first:

There was and is no political interference in our selections. We have a selection panel that includes the coach and independent members, and this panel selected all the teams at the World Cup in the same way that they did before the World Cup.

Then we get Mbalula having his say:

We know who is spreading these speculations and we will not dignify them by mentioning their names.

These are acts of desperate colonial apartheid apologists, a very tiny group of a dying breed of political dinosaurs. We shall not be deterred by their mischief.

Nothing like a lie on top of a lie to cover up a lie, hey fellas? Maybe our politicians should stick to what they are good at. Um, what was that again?

[sources:news24&ewn&iol]