Melbourne: Cricket South Africa (CSA) is planning to do away with its much-criticised selection policy of having a quota for coloured players in the next three years.

The controversial policy which allegedly drove away players like Kevin Pietersen, who is now the captain of England cricket team, will be discarded for a merit-based system.

“The goal is to get merit-based selection at all levels of cricket,” CSA chief executive Gerald Majola was quoted as saying in an Australian daily.

“We have decided to continue with the target transformation policy for the next three years, with a review at the end of each year. At the end of the three years we hope we can then move to merit-based selection across the board,” he added.

The Proteas currently have seven coloured players in their 15-man squad which is in Australia. These are Ashwell Prince, Hashim Amla, Makhaya Ntini, Robin Peterson, Jean-Paul Duminy, Lonwabo Tsotsobe and Monde Zondeki.

The policy was adopted in 1998 and has been criticised by several players and officials.