Publications
Partners
Cape Town - Former South African cricketer and coach Mike Procter says there is no longer a need for the country to employ a quota system.
“I’ve mixed feelings, really. I can totally understand that the injustices of the past are trying to be rectified but I’m not a total believer in having to pick guys because of their colour, to be honest. I think we’ve passed that stage,” Procter said in an interview with Wisden Cricket Monthly.
South Africa’s first post-isolation coach added: “We have some fantastic players from all around now. I can understand why a lot of the white players leave because they are going to be one out of five white players who are in the team, which is not a big number. There’s really no guarantees.”
Cricket South Africa has a strict quota system at domestic level where all franchise teams are required to field at least six players of colour in their starting XIs, with three players required to be black Africans.
The national team, the Proteas, have targets they must adhere to. The target is to field an average of six players of colour in starting XIs over the course of a season, while two of those must be black African.
The 72-year-old Procter, who played over 400 first class matches and was a legendary all-rounder for Natal and English county Gloucestershire, only played seven Tests for South Africa due to the country's sporting isolation during apartheid.
In the interview he said he accepted his fate.
"A lot of South Africans were upset they weren’t playing international cricket (during the country’s ban from 1970 to 1991) but I realised, at the time, that the government’s policies weren’t going to change - we weren’t going to get back. And I accepted that totally," Procter said.
"If one guy’s Test career can help 40 million people lead a better life then that’s good news for me. It didn’t upset me that I couldn’t play Test cricket because what was happening in South Africa was an absolute no-no."
