The chairman of that committee, Shawn Christiansen, as well as veteran administrator Rushdie Magiet, resigned from the steering committee yesterday.

Christiansen said he felt "compromised" by CSA's reaction to his committee's recommendations.

"Norman was nominated as chairman because he was the best-qualified person for the job," Magiet said.

The aggressive manner in which Arendse insisted racial targets be met in the South African team and his attempts to rein in powerful CEO Gerald Majola were part of the reason the board passed a vote of no confidence in him in 2008. That prompted Arendse's resignation.

His recommendation as chairman of the board that will control CSA after its annual meeting on October 27 came to nothing because a clause in the organisation's constitution stipulates that independent directors must not have had any involvement with cricket for the past three years.

Arendse's status as an honorary life member of the Western Province Cricket Association means he falls foul of that rule.

Instead, Absa deputy group CEO Louis von Zeuner will be CSA's next chairman.

"For the board to disqualify Norman on a technicality is not right," Magiet said. "I don't think they want him on the board, I think they are terrified of him."

Arendse and another nominee who did not meet with the board's approval, Julian Smith, are both coloured. They were among five independent directors recommended by Christiansen's committee. The others were Von Zeuner, who is white, Vusi Pikoli and Dawn Mokhobo, who are black, and Mohamed Iqbal Khan, of Indian extraction.

The steering committee was formed when CSA committed itself to radical restructuring.