Politics and cricket have always had a tricky relationship in South Africa. And it just got trickier, thanks to the admission by Percy Sonn, the president of the United Cricket Board, that he intervened on racial grounds over the selection of Justin Ontong, a Cape coloured, for the third Test against Australia. As an administrator who is doing his best to help drag a nation away from its shameful past, Sonn's actions have a sound basis, even a moral one. But as a former lawyer, he must know that the arguments he used to justify Ontong's presence in the final XI ahead of Jacques Rudolph, who is white, wouldn't stand up in a court of law.

Particularly when you consider Sonn's previous position. At the start of December, he was quite categorical: "The government may groan about it, but `one player of colour' means exactly that." Less than a month later, and with Herschelle Gibbs still fulfilling the non-white quota, he tells us that the selection of Rudolph ahead of Ontong would have "amounted to exclusion of a person of colour who has the right to be given the opportunity". An increased coloured presence in the South African team is undoubtedly the right way to go in a country where 86% of the population is non-white. But this process has to be carried out in a credible way – and that's where Sonn, who in between those statements presumably came under some pressure from the government, loses points.

First, he tells us that Ontong was chosen because he was a replacement for No. 6 or below, while Rudolph would have come in for one of the top three only. In a country that cries out for flexibility in the post-apartheid era, this is more rigid than Shaun Pollock's recent captaincy – and even more wishy-washy.

Second, he tries to fudge the question of form. In Ontong's only game of the tour, against New South Wales, he made a pair (out third ball, then fourth), and returned first-innings figures of 6-0-47-0. But Sonn's response is vagueness masquerading as philosophy: "How do you determine form? When do you start gazing into the future and saying when form is going to be permanent?" And when are you going to answer a question with something other than a rhetorical one of your own?

Third, his strategy is fair to no-one, and unfair to almost everyone. To use weak cricketing arguments when the issue is plainly one of colour is to insult Ontong and Rudolph, who are now all too aware of their roles as political pawns, and to place an unreasonable burden on Pollock, who must now do battle on two fields: on it, against the best cricketers in the world, and off it, against some of the least decisive administrators. He is losing both.

South Africa's problem is one of balance. They must weigh up the short-term desire to have a world-class cricket team against the long-term goal of involving the non-white population in the game, thus increasing their chances of success in the future. But the way to do this isn't to make panicky changes at Test level. It is to pump more – even more – money and time into the grass roots.

Sonn's decision to overrule the selectors is well-intentioned but ill-conceived. If Ontong makes another pair at Sydney and takes 0 for 86, young black South Africans are hardly likely to feel encouraged to embrace a game which they already feel is the preserve of the privileged white man. Ontong, Rudolph, Pollock and a troubled nation deserve better.

Lawrence Booth is assistant editor of Wisden.com.

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