South African Cricketers asked to forget IPL and come back home
April 10th, 2008Cricket South Africa ordered its national players to return home, to participate in final stages of the Standard Bank Pro20 semi-finals and final, next weekend. Unluckily, it’s the weekend when the IPL will be officially launched.
South African domestic competition is also high on their set of priorities - obligations to sponsors, who have poured millions into the competition over the years, and SuperSport, the country’s biggest cable network, has paid millions to televise the series. They do not want the final stages of their competition diluted, nor do they care whether IPL will pay millions of dollars to players to miss their domestic competition.
Even though the Cape Cobras initially gave their top players — Graeme Smith, Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Ashwell Prince — permission to remain in India after the third and final Future Test, beginning in Kanpur today, Cricket South Africa will not pull the plug on their powerful franchise.
Even Herschelle Gibbs, dropped from the South African Test squad and who is playing for the Cape Cobras, cannot join the IPL until he ends his obligations with his franchise in his home country.
Now the players, including those from the Titans — Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers and Morne Morkel — will have to return to South Africa when the Kanpur Test ends.
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Dr Logan Naidoo, manager of the Proteas, and also vice-president of Cricket South Africa, said, “I received a call from our Johannesburg headquarters informing me of the latest developments.
As such a decision taken by the Cape Cobras to release their top players for the IPL has been revoked by CSA, and as such the full South African squad will return to South Africa next week,” he said.
With this, all players may end up with a few dollars short in their pay cheques at the end of the IPL event. Smith is signed by the Rajasthan Royals, while Jacques Kallis, Mark Boucher and Dale Steyn were to head to Bangalore Royal Challengers, while AB de Villiers was heading to the Delhi Dare Devils and Prince for the Mumbai Indians.
We still hope that there will be a balancing act and that both the South African Domestic Cricket and IPL will emerge as winners.
Tags: Cobras, Delhi Daredevils, domestic cricket, IPL - Bangalore Royal Challengers, jaques Kallis, Mumbai Indians, players, proteas, Soth africaPosted in Cricket News, IPL - Bangalore Royal Challengers, IPL - Delhi Daredevils, IPL - Mumbai Indians, IPL News |