5 Cricketers who played for other countries and then came back

5. Kyle Abbott

From the beautiful native land of Zululand comes the South-African pacer, Kyle Abbott. Abbott made his debut in a Test match against Pakistan in February 2013, replacing the injured Jacques Kallis in the squad. He impressed everyone on debut as the right armer picked up figures of 7 for 29 in the first innings of the match, the second-best by a South African pacer on debut.

He made his ODI and T20 debut in the very same series itself. Abbott made great first impressions as he could swing the ball both ways and had excellent control over his line and length but the South African Test pace attack was already packed with Morne Morkel, Dale Steyn and Vernon Philander at that time.  Thus, the right arm pacer didn’t get many chances at the Test arena but became a permanent member of the limited-overs squad.

The 2015 World Cup held in New Zealand and Australia saw Abbott being picked up for the South African team. Abbott put up an impressive performance and picked up 9 wickets from 4 games but when he was dropped for the semi-final against New Zealand to rope in an extra batsman, it came in as a bit of a surprise for everyone. Apparently, South Africa lost that game by 4 wickets and experts started criticising the team management for dropping him.

By the end of 2016, a rumour started to flow in that Abbott was on the verge of cracking a Kolpak deal with the English county Hampshire. A Koplak deal meant that he would play as a resident player for the county, and thus would not be able to play for South Africa anymore.  In 2017, Abbott left for England to play as a Kolpak player for Hampshire on a four-year contract.

The decision angered team management and a lot of senior players. In a span of 3 years, Abbott picked up 182 wickets at an average of 18.63 in the County Championship. He also represented the club in the Vitality Blast and the Royal One-Day Cup and was pretty handy there as well.

Following the Brexit, the Kolpak law became void and thus Abbot’s Kolpak contract became void too; this meant that he could play international cricket for South Africa again. The new law states that the clubs could go for 2 overseas players each for every championship. Thus, he will continue to play for Hampshire as an overseas player.

At the brink of 2021, Abbott signed a contract with the Titans, the South African club to represent them in the Momentum One-Day Cup. Abbott has represented South Africa in 11 Tests and has picked up 39 wickets at an average of 22.72. He has also played 28 ODIs and 21 T20Is in which he has picked 34 and 26 wickets respectively.