South Africa pacer Lonwabo Tsotsobe has accused former South Africa captain Graeme Smith of racial bias and intentionally blocking Thami Tsolekile’s entry into the South Africa side. Tsotsobe alleged that Smith had threatened to retire with immediate effect if wicket-keeper batsman Tsolekile was selected in the national team. Tsotsobe has written a seven-page letter to Cricket South Africa (CSA), leveling serious allegations of racism on their current director Smith. Tsotsobe has played 5 Tests, 61 ODIs, and 23 T20Is for South Africa but his career went downhill after he was handed an eight-year ban for his involvement in 2015 match-fixing scandal.
In his submission to CSA, Tsotsobe alleged that Tsolekile was all set to make his comeback for South Africa on their tour of England in 2012, however, he was denied entry into the side.
Tsotsobe said Tsolekile was picked as a replacement for injured wicket-keeper Mark Boucher, however, AB de Villiers was instead handed the gloves and asked to keep wickets.“Tsolekile was destined to replace Boucher‚ but suddenly AB de Villiers was made the keeper. The wicketkeeper is a specialist position that needed a specialist of which De Villiers is not. The idea of assigning keeping duties to De Villiers was to block the selection of a black player in the fold of Tsolekile,” Tsotsobe said in his submission to CSA, as per TimesLive.“This was confirmed by Smith who categorically stated that if Tsolekile was selected he would retire with immediate effect‚” he further alleged. Tsolekile himself had last year accused Smith of racial bias and opened up on his sidelining from the South Africa squad. He had described the move to give De Villiers the gloves as 'pure racism' while demanding an apology from Smith. Smith captained South Africa from 2003 until his retirement in 2014. He was appointed as the director of Cricket South Africa last year.
Post the allegations, the former Proteas skipper came out with a statement in defense saying the accusations were "extremely hurtful" and denied them in the "strongest possible sense.""The allegations and insinuations that have been made are extremely hurtful and I deny them in the strongest possible sense. Unfortunately, Thami was a wicket-keeper, which meant he was always only fighting for one position. I can understand how frustrating that must have been, and there have been several other excellent wicket-keepers that South African cricket never saw on an international stage, because keepers tend to stay in a team for long periods of time. That is also an international trend, not unique to South Africa.” Graeme Smith retired from all forms of international cricket in 2014. The left-handed batsman is widely regarded as one of the finest captains ever, and the person who took South African cricket forward in the early 2000s after various match-fixing allegations had rocked the rainbow nation.
