Cricket still under the colour cloud
The Proteas coach and captain, Mickey Arthur and Graeme Smith, appeared unconcerned on Tuesday about a threat by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) that it plans to take up the issue of transformation in cricket, with mass action if necessary.
Cosatu issued the threat after South Africa's eight-wicket loss to India in the third Test in Kanpur.
"The white wonder boys are not as invincible as they would have us believe," said the federation.
Cosatu said it hoped the defeat would serve as a lesson not to allow a few players, the players' association, and "black players who are embarrassed to be black" to dictate terms to the country.
"We have seen for a long time how the cricket environment is dominated by the existing cricket association who appears to act in the main on behalf of white players," said the federation.
Arthur and Smith were told of the threat when they returned to South Africa after drawing the three Test series against India.
"This has arguably been South Africa's best season," responded Arthur. "We played 39 international matches this year and won 32. I don't think you can argue with that."
"I think the success of the team is indicative of the processes that have been put in place.
"With success, there will be fewer off-field issues than there might be without success. I'm comfortable that things have been sorted out and that we are going from strength to strength."
"As players we just want to see that the system is right, and that it can be trusted," said Smith. "We don't want to have any issues like we had before the last tour. Hopefully, we can now just concentrate on the cricket."
Smith said he was pleased with the team's performance throughout the season.
"I think the season we've just had out did all our expectations," he said.
"We had three sub-continent tours, and we won two and drew one. It's the toughest place to go on tour, so it's been awesome. We also had a successful home season."
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Cricket still under the colour cloud
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