Carte Blanche is usually a downer, that’s kind of its thing, but yesterday evening they ramped up the Sunday blues by showing the final hit of our ill-fated 2015 Cricket World Cup campaign.

Side note – if you provide warnings about flash photography for those suffering from epilepsy, please also provide a warning when you’re about to show something most SA cricket fans have avoided watching over for the best part of a year and a half.

Anyway that defeat to New Zealand included perhaps the most controversial transformation selection in our international history, a barely fit Vern Philander selected ahead of Kyle Abbot in order to field four players of colour.

If there’s one positive to take from that match it’s that we now, finally, have exact transformation targets for the national men’s team. Below from Sport24:

The targets require the national team to play an average minimum of 54% black players and average minimum of 18% black african players over the season.

This is a natural progression in the Board’s determination to drive transformation aggressively as part of CSA’s [Cricket South Africa] policy to make cricket a truly national sport accessible to all.

The targets will be an average of the cumulative representation across all three formats in a season.

It’s not often that CSA show a little common sense, but the idea of ‘cumulative representation’ is a far better strategy than a strict match by match basis. Here’s CSA president Chris Nenzani:

“With the targets being measured over the full season and being cumulative across all three formats, our selectors and team management will have the flexibility to deal with varying circumstances.

“This shows very clearly that the targets are very attainable and sustainable and we will maintain the world-class standards that our players regularly produce,” concluded Nenzani.

Whilst the recent tests against New Zealand saw the Proteas field six players of colour, if the likes of Kagiso Rabada or Temba Bavuma were to suffer injuries it would make for a rather tricky situation.

I know everyone out there is shouting ‘there’s no place for politics in sport’, but that ship sailed a time long ago. Given the fact that we finally have clarity, years of behind-the scenes whispers and denial from CSA spokespeople set to come to an end, perhaps we should be relieved.

Let’s just hope the Proteas are better at working out that 54% and 18% than they are with working out how Duckworth-Lewis works.

[source:sport24]