OPINION: Proteas must first win before following Boks’ lead of rotating players

The Proteas named their squads for the ODI series against Afghanistan and the T20I and ODI series against Ireland in the UAE earlier this week, once again leaving out the majority of their first-choice players.

In their recent tour to the West Indies the Proteas played a largely full-strength team in the two-Test series, which they won one-nil after drawing the first Test and winning the second.

But for the T20I series that followed they left out a host of star players, with white ball coach Rob Walter explaining that it was due to certain players being in a conditioning block related to workload management, or their participation in ongoing T20 leagues.

That is once again the case for the Afghanistan and Irish series, with Walter also saying that he wanted to turn the Proteas into a team with the same sort of depth as the double World Cup winning Springboks.

However, to achieve that the Proteas need to become as good a team as the Boks and need to be winning regularly, if they are to even become close to matching what the world champions have done.

Also, and arguably the biggest thing, is that the players have to put the Proteas first, otherwise emulating the Boks will never happen.

Springbok players put their country above all other rugby, even the players based in leagues outside of SA, although they are helped by there being an international season, where they are fully available for the national team, and their franchise sides don’t have any say in the matter.

That is where cricket falls short. There is no standard international season, and with the amount of money spinning T20 leagues popping up around the world, players choose to rather earn big money, than represent their country.

It also doesn’t help if Cricket South Africa aren’t able to manage the players properly, and put their foot down at certain times.

It is understandable to a degree that they can’t afford to anger the IPL, especially since their own SA20 league teams are owned by IPL owners.

But they can absolutely give players an ultimatum on representing their country ahead of smaller leagues, and if a player wants to rather choose the money that is their choice and it is probably better that they don’t play for the Proteas.

The understrength Proteas T20 team was duly hammered three-nil by the Windies, and hopefully they won’t be in for more of the same against Afghanistan, who are building into a decent team.

If they lose to the Irish, who are a second-tier nation, that will be embarrassing, and losing doesn’t help the players or the team management in their quest to build decent depth.