In a quest to bring dignity to the Proteas team with retirements of key players looming, the MSL has come to the rescue at a perfect time for South African cricket, writes Ongama Gcwabe.

A prime example is the current fold of Indian cricketers. All world-class, they currently vie for spots in the side with opportunities being awarded to deserving players.

Take Shubman Gill, Prithvi Shaw and Rohit Sharma for instance, they’re all fighting for that one spot alongside Mayank Agarwal who’s seemingly a first-choice opener in the Indian Test side. One way or another, these players are a result of the IPL.

I think the South African team is starting to reap the rewards of project Mzansi Super League. We’re seeing a lot of youngsters come through the system and stake a claim for spots in the national side, in situations you’d almost expect them to fail. 

“In a way, [we wanted to] almost throw them into the deep-end and see what they could do,” Boucher explained when talking about the thinking behind the new look Proteas ODI side that played Australia.

“I was pleasantly surprised, which left us in a situation towards the back end of the season that was nice to be in.” he added.

Yes, we’re by no means at the same stage as India, but there’s certainly a similar trend in both countries’ talent acceleration initiatives through tournaments like the MSL.

Apart from consistently performing well in domestic cricket, some of the inexperienced players who played in the England and Australia ODI series were all products of the MSL.

The likes of Jon-Jon Smuts, Kyle Verreynne, Janneman Malan, Lutho Sipamla and Daryn Dupavillon or as I call them ‘The class of MSL 2.0’.

From the first edition of the MSL there was Rassie van der Dussen, Reeza Hendricks, Beuran Hendricks and Anrich Nortje. After the MSL they all broke into the Proteas squad and are now Proteas contracted players.

“If you’ve done it before then there should be no question whether you can do it again,” those are the words of the young Verreynne in an exclusive interview with Cricket Fanatics Magazine.

“For me playing in the MSL, you play against KG[Rabada], Duanne [Olivier]… In SA A games I played against Chahal and those guys, then against England they had Stokes, Anderson and Woakes. 

“I don’t want to say it was nothing different [the transition to international cricket]. But when you’ve had experiences against world class bowlers already, I never question whether I’ll be able to do it.

“Because for me playing in the MSL some of those guys are the best in the world and same as the Australian team. So what’s different against these guys [the Australians].

“It was a challenge but I think mentally that just stuck at the back of my head, that I’ve been able to deal with people of similar abilities before so there’s no reason I wouldn’t be able to deal with it now,” Verreynne concluded.

Our last two Test series, Faf du Plessis often spoke about the difference in experience between the Proteas team and the India and England teams.

He mentioned that even though a guy like Agarwal wasn’t really experienced in international cricket, he’d “smoked” world-class bowlers in the IPL before going on to play against those guys in international cricket.

That made a world of difference between the Indian inexperienced players and our youngsters who were on that tour.

But that gap is beginning to narrow a bit through the MSL which has come to our rescue at a perfect time.

Even though the first attempt, the ‘T20 Global League’, was a spectacular failure, CSA turned things around with the MSL and now we’re reaping the rewards.

Another exciting opportunity the MSL brings with it is the possibility of overseas players and the likes thereof, to come back and make themselves available for Proteas selection again.

Usually our domestic season overlaps with other T20 competitions in the circuit which makes it hard for our retired internationals, who are now overseas players, to come back and play a part again in South African domestic cricket.

There’s no substitute for the wealth of knowledge the likes of Roelof van der Merwe, Ryan ten Doeschate, Morne Morkel and AB de Villiers bring to our system.

Then theres the like of Hardus Viljoen who go abroad to sharpen their skills and have come back into our system through the MSL and now have the possibility to put on the green and gold again.

Read: “At that stage I thought they didn’t want me, but that was never the case.” – Hardus Viljoen

Should the third edition of the MSL not be cancelled due to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the future of SA cricket looks bright!

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