Cricket South Africa announce start of national team race quota

Cricket South Africa (CSA) has announced the national team will have include a minimum average of six black players with immediate effect.

Quotas have been in place at provincial and franchise level for several years, but this will be the first time they have been introduced for the national team.

The targets were ratified at Cricket South Africa's (CSA) annual general meeting in Johannesburg after being discussed by sub-committees.

The official targets are a minimum of 54 per cent black players - effectively six players other than white - with 18 per cent black African, which equates to two players in a team of 11.

This effectively means an average maximum of five white players in a team.

CSA president Chris Nenzani described the targets as "very attainable" and said the South African team was already meeting them.

The targets will be measured as an average across all three forms of the game - Tests, one-day internationals and Twenty20 internationals - over the course of a season.

The team that beat New Zealand in the second Test in Centurion on Tuesday met the target exactly with two black Africans in Temba Bavuma and Kagiso Rabada and four other players of colour, Hashim Amla, JP Duminy, Vernon Philander and Dane Piedt.

Nenzani noted that the one-day international team which competed in a triangular series against Australia and the West Indies in the West Indies recently had up to eight players of colour in the team.

"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," he said.