South African Coach Ottis Gibson Wanted World Cup-Bound Players To Make Early Return From IPL 2019: Report

Just like the players of England and Australia, the South African players could have also had an early exit from IPL 2019 to prepare for World Cup but the South African cricket board did not ask for it to BCCI. Ottis Gibson, the head coach of South African cricket team, wanted the World Cup-bound players to return to the country in early May to prepare for the tournament. However, this request wasn’t brought to notice to BCCI by Cricket South Africa.

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A report in TimesLive suggests that this could have had an impact on India’s tour of South Africa in the 2021-22 season. A tour of the Indian team to any country is a huge boost for any board and CSA is also benefitted whenever the team travels South Africa. Hence, the board went with the flow and never came up with the talk to release the players early.

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This will now see Imran Tahir, Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock play in the final of the league tomorrow. Chris Morris was also part of Delhi Capitals that got eliminated from the tournament yesterday. He wasn’t a part of the playing XI. The South African players will fly back to the country right after the IPL final to join the national squad and prepare for the World Cup.

South African team management is still sweating over the fitness of Dale Steyn while Kagiso Rabada is suffering from a back issue, that he had suffered during his IPL stint.

Steyn landed in India mid-way IPL as a replacement for Nathan Coulter-Nile. His presence in Royal Challengers Bangalore’s camp boosted the team’s confidence but he returned after just two games due to a shoulder issue.

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Rabada, on the other hand, had a back issue and after missing a game against Chennai Super Kings, he returned back. Although it was a precautionary measure but he could not play all important Eliminator as he had an early exit from the tournament.

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The players from South Africa, New Zealand and West Indies are playing full tournament. Neither South Africa nor New Zealand is playing any international series while the West Indies board allowed its players to play IPL despite playing in a tri-series presently.