Rickelton, Stubbs included in South Africa's T20 World Cup squad

 

After everything, Ryan Rickelton will go to the T20 World Cup in Sri Lanka and India next month. So will Tristan Stubbs. But Tony de Zorzi and Donovan Ferreira, who were in the squad, will not. Neither, at this stage, will Ottneil Baartman.

The changes, which CSA revealed on Thursday, were made not because of a rethink in the wake of performances in the SA20. Instead, they were dictated by injury. And there may be more where those came from.

David Miller is probably out of Paarl Royals' eliminator against Joburg Super Kings in Centurion on Thursday because of the groin he hurt playing against Joburg in Paarl on Monday. Lungi Ngidi bowled only half of his overs for Pretoria Capitals in qualifier one against Sunrisers Eastern Cape at Kingsmead on Wednesday before leaving the field with a seriously strapped leg. Dewald Brevis scored an unbeaten 75 off 38 to put Pretoria in Sunday's final at Newlands, but injured a finger in the process. Miller, Ngidi, and Brevis are all in South Africa's T20 World Cup squad.

It is understood Ngidi will be good to go come the T20 World Cup. That would mean Baartman, the SA20's top wicket-taker with 17 strikes - 10 more than Ngidi at an economy rate of just 0.29 more - remains in the cold.

Brevis, too, should be fit. The worry is Miller, whose 36-year-old groin is unlikely to be as elastic and resilient as it was when he was a younger man. Cricbuzz has learnt the Royals have called up two players as cover for Thursday's game - an indication of the severity of Miller's issue.

Rickelton is also in the squad named on Thursday to play West Indies in three T20Is next week. But not Miller, whose "availability for the T20 World Cup remains subject to the outcome of a fitness test ahead of the support period", a CSA release said. Miller's plight has created an opportunity for Rubin Hermann, who is in the mix for the West Indian rubber on the back of the 205 runs he has scored in eight innings for Eastern Cape.

Rickelton's omission from South Africa's squad, which CSA prematurely announced on January 2 - 29 days before it had to be released - sparked uproar. He scored 113 off 63 for Mumbai Indians Cape Town against Durban's Super Giants at Newlands eight days before the squad was named followed that with an unbeaten 113 off 60 against Joburg at the Wanderers eight days later.

Yet he didn't crack the nod. But De Zorzi did despite not having played since December 3, when he injured a hamstring while batting in an ODI against India in Raipur.

CSA said on Thursday that De Zorzi was not recovering quickly enough to be sure of regaining his fitness in time to play in the series against the Windies and was thus taken out of the equation for the T20 World Cup, hence Rickelton's elevation.

De Zorzi's original selection raised questions about the influence of CSA's self-set targets of six black and brown players, two of them black, in every XI. CSA take the average of those numbers over the course of a season, and decide from that whether their transformation efforts are on track.

South Africa's government measures the figures from January to December, so the racial make-up of the T20 World Cup squad wouldn't have come into the reckoning for last year's tally - when South Africa's teams fell short of the target. That happened not least because of injuries to Temba Bavuma, Kagiso Rabada, Keshav Maharaj, and De Zorzi. Rihan Richards, CSA's president, will have to explain all that to parliament in March.

Even so, considering De Zorzi hasn't played for almost two months and still isn't fit, did South Africa's government lean on CSA to pick players because they are black? It's a crass and ugly thought that ignores De Zorzi's quality - he proved his ability in Asian conditions by scoring a Test century and half-century and an ODI 50 in Pakistan in October and November. But, in a chronically divided society, thoughts like that will be had.

South Africans don't come more crass than Gayton McKenzie, the sports minister, who seems to shamble from one self-harming scandal to the next with impressively epic clumsiness. Did he put the heat on CSA to select fewer white and more black and brown players?

"The assertion that CSA was pressured by the minister of sport or any government authority regarding team selection is categorically false," McKenzie's spokesperson, Stacey-Lee Khojane, told Cricbuzz. CSA's selection processes are autonomous, governed by its internal policies, and fully compliant with ICC regulations. At no point has CSA received or acted upon any directive from the government in relation to squad composition. Any suggestion of government interference is therefore unfounded and incorrect."

She would have strengthened her argument by drawing attention to Ferreira, who is white. After his three innings for Joburg before the T20 World Cup squad was announced, he had scored 54 runs. He was selected anyway. Ferreira made 49 runs in five subsequent trips to the crease - the last of them at the Wanderers on Saturday, when he fractured a shoulder in the field against Pretoria.

Stubbs, another white player, also hasn't made a strong case. He scored 28 runs in three innings for Eastern Cape before the squad was revealed, and has since made 101 in five trips to the crease - never scoring more than 47 not out. But at least his shoulders are intact.

Squad: Aiden Markram (captain), Corbin Bosch, Dewald Brevis, Quinton de Kock, Marco Jansen, George Linde, Keshav Maharaj, Kwena Maphaka, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada, Ryan Rickelton, Jason Smith, Tristan Stubbs