Faf du Plessis believes new T20 league will help South Africa retain players

South African batsman Faf du Plessis believes that the new T20 league of South Africa is the ideal way to keep the players interested in national cricket. In the last couple of years, the South African team has seen the players heading out of the national system and signing the Kolpak deals. They often feel that they do not get adequate opportunities in South Africa cricket and are financially unstable.

Hence, offers like signing Kolpak seems to be the right way forward. Now, with the T20 Global League announced, Faf du Plessis is optimistic about the times ahead. At the launch of the T20 league, he noted that it is a huge step forward. The players will no longer be looking to outside opportunities when they will get everything they want from their native land.

“I spoke about it when the Kolpak thing started happening in South Africa – it was probably important that South Africa looked at different ways to try and keep players in the country. I think this is a huge step towards that. Players don’t have to look outside anymore, 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,” quoted Faf du Plessis as per the quotes in ESPNcricinfo.

Opportunities for domestic talent

He further noted that the platform will be ideal for the domestic talents. He conceded that the domestic players often go unnoticed in South Africa. On the contrary, the players in Australia get into the limelight because of the exposure they get in the Big Bash. Subsequently, they get to play in grander leagues such as the IPL. Faf du Plessis hopes that the T20 Global league will serve the same purpose for Proteas cricket.

“I feel the domestic have been under-looked at sometimes. You always just get your international players getting good opportunities everywhere around the world, but this will be a great opportunity for the domestic players to put their names out there to the world and somehow try and get into the IPLs and those kinds of tournaments. If you look at the Australian system, there is a lot more players that get picked up from there into the IPLs and that is because of the TV exposure from the Big Bash. This will be exactly the same,” conceded the star batsman.

Delight for the fans

Adding further on the same note, Du Plessis mentioned that the fans back home would welcome the tournament. When they see the international stars dazzle in the IPL, they feel even they should have a league of their own. And now, they are set to get one. It will be a great spectacle for the fans back home to see the big stars performing.

“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. What that does is bring in your ex-players, as Brendon talked about, your ‘mercenaries’. South Africa is no different to any other place. The fans would love to see Brendon McCullum, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard and all those players,” he quoted.