Du Plessis hopes new league will halt exodus

Faf du Plessis is optimistic the creation of a new Twenty20 Global League in SA will help prevent the country’s top cricketers from leaving in search of better financial opportunities.

The combination of a relatively weak economy and the lure of the English county game has led a number of Proteas cricketers to call time on their international careers.

SA has a trade agreement with the EU that means players in England are regarded as “home” selections under the Kolpak rule.

Kyle Abbott, Rilee Rossouw, Dane Vilas, David Wiese, Simon Harmer, Hardus Viljoen and Stiaan van Zyl have all opted to play county cricket rather than continue to represent SA, sparking fears of a mass exodus.

While financial security has been the often cited reason, there have been concerns that transformation targets could have played a part too.

But Test and Twenty20 captain Du Plessis, who played for Lancashire under the Kolpak rule and has appeared in Twenty20 leagues around the world, said he hoped the new tournament would help provide opportunities that were available only outside SA at present.

“I spoke about it when the Kolpak thing started happening in SA. It was probably important that SA looked at different ways to try and keep players in the country,” Du Plessis explained at the eight-team Global League’s launch in London on Monday.

“I think this is a huge step towards that,” the 32-year-old batsman added.

“Players don’t have to look outside any more, from an opportunity point of view and from a financial point of view — they don’t need to go overseas and look for other stuff.

“This is going to be really important to keeping most of the players in the country.”

The November-December time frame for the new event would also mean that SA’s leading players would be available for the whole of a domestic Twenty20 competition.

“We’ve always come back from long tours and there was a lot of important cricket coming up so we haven’t always been around to play as much domestic cricket as was needed,” said Du Plessis, a veteran of 40 Tests.

“For the whole South African team to be available to play in this tournament is the most important thing.

“You are starting to see different T20 leagues taking up different gaps during the year, and current international players can’t participate in all of them. It’s just not possible,” said Du Plessis.

“What that does is bring in your ex-players, as Brendon [McCullum] talked about, your ‘mercenaries’.

“SA is no different to any other place.

“The fans would love to see Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and all those players.”