Cricket South Africa (CSA) has taken points away from the Warriors for not following the transformation policy. As a result, the Dolphins will now host the Cricket SA 1-Day Cup Qualifier against the Titans at Kingsmead on Wednesday.

On Sunday, CSA announced that the Titans and Warriors would face off in the qualifier at Centurion, but this decision changed after the Warriors lost points from their game against the Dolphins on February 16 at Kingsmead, as confirmed in an article on IOL Sport.

CSA’s transformation rules for men’s domestic cricket state that each team must field at least six players of colour, with three of them being Black African players. In the game in question, the Warriors had six players of colour, but only two were Black African (Sinethemba Qeshile and Andile Mokgakane), which broke the rules.

After a month-long investigation, CSA decided to take away five points from the Warriors, including the bonus point, for their 126-run win over the Dolphins.

As a result, the Dolphins received the four points for the match, which pushed them up to 23 points, putting them in second place behind Boland (25 points). Boland will host Sunday’s final at Boland Park.

With the point deduction, the Warriors now have 16 points, which puts them out of the playoff spots. The Titans stay at 21 points, finishing in third place, and will travel to Durban to play the qualifier instead of hosting it at Centurion.

“Basically, the game we played against the Warriors, they did not adhere to the transformation requirements,” Dolphins CEO Heinrich Strydom explained to IOL Sport.

“CSA went through a process and confirmed that they would lose their points, and we would get the points from that game.”

Strydom also clarified that it was CSA, not the Dolphins, that raised the issue. “No, we didn’t even bring it to their attention. It was CSA who picked it up,” he said. He also noted that it took quite a long time to resolve, nearly a month after the game.