South African Sports Minister Steve Tshwete lashed out yesterday at the country's sports selectors for excluding black players from teams in white-dominated sports.

Tshwete, who at the weekend announced plans for a commission to accelerate transformation in traditionally white sports, told SABC television that provincial selectors were perpetuating racism in sport.

"Provincial panels allocate to themselves the position of the last bastion of apartheid in sport," he said.

He said the government's non-interference in the selection of provincial sides should not "be used as a ploy to keep black players on the benches as drinks boys."

Tshwete announced the commission after recent controversy over the selection of an all-white South African Test cricket team.

He said he did not believe that black bowler Mkhaya Ntini did not make the team purely because he had been off-form.