No SA20 without South Africa's best - du Plessis and Markram okay with new reality

South Africa expect to see solid benefits from their T20 league in the not-too-distant future

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The success of a T20 league relies on a strong contingent of active local international players, Faf du Plessis, a veteran of the circuit who will lead Jo'burg Super Kings for the second season of the SA20, believes.

"The secret always lies in the national players being available," du Plessis, former South Africa captain, told a select group of journalists during captains' day in Cape Town two days out from the start of the tournament. "I've played in some competitions where you get the national players for only half the competition or a third of the competition, and then the standard really drops."

And therein lies the conundrum that has caught fire over the last week, since the extent of South Africa's understrength Test squad that will play in New Zealand became clear. They will be captained by Neil Brand, who has yet to play a Test, and half the traveling group of 14 players are uncapped. The other half have just 50 Tests between them and only two - Keegan Petersen and David Bedingham - have played Test cricket in the last year. The composition of the squad was necessitated by the fact that the first-choice players are required to play the SA20, for exactly the reason du Plessis outlined.

But read his rationale again - you need high-profile international players to maintain the quality of a domestic league - and you may conclude that it sounds a bit chicken-and-egg. In order to produce high-profile international players, a country needs to play high-profile international cricket. But South Africa have had to cut down on its internationals to accommodate the SA20. At some point, doesn't that mean it will run out of high-quality internationals for the league?

Graeme Smith, the former South Africa captain who is now the commissioner of the SA20, doesn't think so. In fact, he is hopeful that the SA20 can soon begin to add to the production line of South African cricket. "It's domestic cricket, but the platform and the competition here make it a bridge closer to international cricket," he said. "Hopefully in year two, three or four years, we will start to see the benefits."

He may have a point. South Africa's white-ball coach Rob Walter indicated that because of the scarcity of T20Is - South Africa played three against India last month and will not play any more before the announcement of their World Cup squad - he will have to rely on the SA20 and the IPL when selecting his squad for the event in June 2024.

That means players like du Plessis, who has not played international cricket since February 2021 but has dominated run-charts in various T20 leagues, could find himself in contention for the national side, although he played down his own chances.

"That team would have been selected already, probably in terms of 90% of the squad," du Plessis said. "You can look at tournaments and pick one or two guys that are carrying some good form but if you ask the coach, he would have 90% of his team in his mind already."

It also means that a rookie who has an outstanding season could force his way into the national side, as was the case with Gerald Coetzee. He finished as the third-highest wicket-taker in last season's SA20, debuted across all formats later in the year, and is now one of South Africa's most promising prospects.