Langeveldt makes a statement

Rodney Hartman, in the Star, gives his take on Charl Langelveldt's decision to withdraw himself from South Africa's side for the Test series against India after he was upset over the controversy surrounding the selection of the squad.

Langeveldt's reaction has caught everyone on the wrong foot. He has pulled out of the team, not so much in sympathy with Nel but in protest at the system as a whole.

Indeed, he becomes the first black sportsman to withdraw from a national team because he believes he has been picked for the wrong reasons.

In so doing, Charl Langeveldt has made a statement far more eloquent than anything that has spewed from the mouths of those officials and politicians who would use proud and sensitive players as their own little pawns.

Hartman's view is shared by the Mercury's Mike Greenaway, who feels Langevedlt deserves "our respect for reacting to racial discrimination in our sport and our sympathy for the humiliation he suffered at the hands of social engineers who use players as pawns."

Gary Lemke, the Cape Argus' sports editor, praises Langeveldt's decision.

He did the hardest thing imaginable and turned down the opportunity to play Test cricket for his country. Had he been born 30 years before, Langeveldt would have been denied the chance to represent South Africa because he is black. Now he was selected, because he is black. What irony.

So Langeveldt withdrew. He didn't want to be a quota player.

They should erect a statue in his honour outside the gates of Newlands, and every other cricket ground in the country.

It should remind officials and politicians that quotas in sport is a damaging system that's been abused by officials.