Did South Africa's cricket team drop a white player and replace him with an injured black player for a World Cup semifinal match to make its lineup more racially acceptable?
The question has revived an uncomfortable conversation over race and change in South African sport, where the two most successful national teams cricket and rugby are still mainly white more than two decades after the end of apartheid.
Sports minister Fikile Mbalula denied that he influenced the cricket team to drop white bowler Kyle Abbott for Vernon Philander in last week's World Cup semifinal against New Zealand.
Mbalula, who is black, said he was responding to accusations made by "a dying breed of political dinosaurs." He didn't identify the source of the accusations.
"We know who are spreading these speculations and we will not dignify them by mentioning their names," Mbalula said in a statement over the weekend. "These are acts of desperate colonial apartheid apologist(s) ... We shall not be deterred by their mischief."
He released a second statement today rejecting the "unfounded allegations," with the South African sports media focusing intensely on the issue.
Mbalula's denial was backed up by Cricket South Africa chief executive Haroon Lorgat, who said there was "absolutely no interference" with team selection at the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand.
"I must tell you that I've never heard any more nonsense than that in all my tenure as an administrator," Lorgat said.
