South Africa's rugby and cricket administrators once again find themselves under fire from African National Congress-aligned leaders and organisations for selecting "lily-white" national teams.

Sports Minister Steve Tshwete - a key player in the successful onslaught against Afrikaner strongman and former South African Rugby Football Union president Louis Luyt - has threatened to use the Sports Commission, due to be established early next year, to force selectors to include blacks in South African rugby and cricket teams.

Similar threats have been directed against the United Cricket Board by Tshwete.

Tshwete's fulminations come after a remarkably successful run of 17 successive victories by South African rugby players (marred only by last Saturday's defeat by England at Twickenham) and an impressive, first-ever victory by South Africa's cricketers over the touring West Indies just over a week ago.

The national selectors insist that these teams were selected on merit, though they happen to be white.

A move by the United Cricket Board to defuse the tension following the triumph of the all-white South African cricket team seems to have agitated rather than appeased black notables clamouring for greater "representativity" in national sporting teams.

The move, contained in a statement issued at the weekend, consists of three elements: (1) an instruction to provincial teams to include "players of colour" and thereby increase the number eligible for selection to the national team; (2) an injunction to national selectors to include "players of colour" in the national squad before it is pared back to the final team; and (3) the formation of special committee empowered to refer a national team back to the selectors for reconsideration if the final team is bereft of "players of colour."

But the president of the National Sports Council, ANC member of parliament Mluleki George, is unimpressed; he accuses United Cricket Board managing director Ali Bacher, of "using" black sportsmen for his own ends.

George, who served dutifully under Luyt in the SA Rugby Football Union until his challenge to replace him ended in a crushing electoral defeat, states: "Bacher, who professes to be a liberal has been reckless of late . . . We made a mistake by trusting him. There is a concerted effort to keep black players from representing the country at senior level."

Referring to the young black fast bowler, Makhaya Ntini, who toured England but who was dropped from the team which beat the West Indies, George states: "I am not convinced that Makhaya has been dropped because of poor form. I want to warn Bacher and the selectors that we will take action against them."

By insisting on the selection of blacks to ensure "representativity" - which, like "transformation," is a word oft on the lips of ANC politicians - Tshwete and George seem to be insisting on a minimum quota of blacks in national teams.

Ironically black cricketers who have represented South Africa in recent months but who were dropped from the team which defeated the West Indies have made it clear they would rather be excluded than included for racial or political reasons. They want to be selected on merit or not at all.

One of these players, opening batsmen Hershelle Gibbs, has been selected to play in the second Test against the West Indies starting on Thursday. The match will be played in Port Elizabeth in the Eastern Cape, one of the few provinces where there is a strong rugby-playing tradition and where, according to Tshwete, there is a "cauldron" of anger in the black community over the exclusion of black players.

If feelings are indeed running high, Tshwete cannot escape responsibility. He has used his status of an ANC leader to charge sports administrators with racial bias, if not racism, and thus make them targets of community anger.

Tshwete is battling for his political life following three setbacks in the past year: his crushing defeat when he stood as a candidate for national chairmanship of the ANC; the recommendation by a Presidential Commission that his ministry be abolished and incorporated into the Education Ministry; and his classification as a dishonest witness by the judge in the successful South African Rugby Football Union application to have a presidential commission of inquiry into rugby set aside.

One of the reasons for the judge's finding is that Tshwete, on his own evidence, condoned a calculated lie in a press statement issued by the director general of his Sports Ministry.