Former South African pacer Lonwabo Tsotsobe has made a large allegation in opposition to Graeme Smith – one of the best batsmen and captains of the boys’s nationwide cricket crew – accusing him of racism stating that the legendary left-hander had threatened to retire if Thami Tsolekile was chosen as wicket-keeper within the senior crew.
Tsolekile was thought-about as a prodigy in South Africa as a teenager and represented the nation in three Tests in 2004 making his debut in opposition to India in Kanpur. He had a great first-class file with 5844 runs in 160 matches at a median of 30.43 with six lots of. According to Tsotsobe, Tsolekile was slated to interchange Mark Boucher as South Africa’s Test keeper in 2012 however that place was handed to AB de Villiers.
“Tsolekile was destined to replace Boucher but suddenly AB de Villiers was made the keeper. Wicketkeeper is a specialist position that needed a specialist which De Villiers is not,” acknowledged Tsotsobe.
Tsotsobe added that the choice of De Villiers as keeper was a deliberate transfer by Smith who wished to exclude a black participant from the XI.
“The idea of assigning keeping duties to De Villiers was to block the selection of a black player in the fold of Tsolekile. This was confirmed by Smith who categorically stated that if Tsolekile was selected he would retire with immediate effect,” added Tsotsobe.
Smith has vociferously denied these baseless allegations and acknowledged that there was competitors for the one wicket-keeper’s place on the time and that he had given his option to the selectors as to who he thought was the absolute best candidate for South Africa.
“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.”
Smith added that AB de Villiers was the primary selection wicket-keeper on the time (in England in 2012) and Tsolekile had been communicated on his position as reserve keeper within the squad.
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“Thami was in the squad as reserve keeper to AB de Villiers and this was communicated to him on both the England and Australian tours by Gary Kirsten, which has been previously acknowledged by Thami,” added Smith.
Smith who’s presently the Director of South African cricket, captained South Africa for 11 years between 2003 and 2014.
Tsotsobe performed 89 internationals for South Africa between 2009 and 2014. He was a tremendous ODI bowler returning with 94 wickets in simply 60 innings at a median of 24.96 and strike price of 31.5.
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