Legendary South African all-rounder Jacques Kallis has removed his controversial tweet that he is "embarrassed to call himself South African..." in the wake of a government decision to ban sports federations including cricket for failing to pick enough black players.
Yesterday, Kallis, now a coach with IPL team Kolkata Knight Riders, had tweeted:"So sad that i find myself embarrassed to call myself a South African so often these days #no place for politics in sport."
This was in fact a twitter reply when local channel News24 posted "Mbalula bans SA from bidding for major rugby, cricket events".
South Africa's sports minister Fikile Mbulala had announced that he would veto any bid by the cricket, rugby, netball and athletics bodies to host multinational events as they had missed racial "transformation targets" designed to redress apartheid era inequalities.
But that particular tweet since then has been removed where Kallis has defended himself stating that he is not anti-transformation.
"Comment y'day was re political bullying NOT anti Transformation. 40 underprivileged boys had or having education paid for by JK Foundation," Kallis tweeted in his defence.
The South African cricket team over the years has seen black or coloured cricketers representing the national team. Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada, Aaron Phangiso are some of the notable names who are representing the Proteas in cricket.
