“To make a living in the game, top cricketers don’t need South African cricket. That is worrying.” – Andrew Breetzke, SACA chief executive
TELFORD VICE | Cape Town
NOT long ago the impending end of the Kolpak era would have been celebrated in South Africa. After 16 years in which 64 of the country’s players had chosen to further their careers in England, the balance would be restored. Too much of a generation of talent had been lost, but the drain would be blocked. Cricket’s coming home, South Africans would say. If only it was that simple.
The Cotonou agreement, which allows players who are citizens of 79 countries in Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific to work as locals in the European Union, expires in December. But the EU’s website says the organisation “will work towards a substantially revised agreement with a common foundation at ACP [Africa, Caribbean and Pacific] level combined with three regional tailored partnerships for Africa, the Caribbean and the Pacific”. So South Africans who have taken up Kolpak contracts — which make them unavailable for national selection in return for not being regarded as overseas professionals with their counties — might have had a reasonable expectation of the arrangement continuing in some form.
But the United Kingdom (UK) is set to leave the EU at the end of this year, a truth the Brexit-supporting UK government seems determined to realise come what may. In less politically polarised times an economy hit hard by Covid-19 surely would have prompted negotiations for a delayed departure. One look at prime minister Boris Johnson’s hair should tell you sensibility isn’t high among his priorities. Kolpak’s days, then, are numbered: the only remaining domestic cricket in England this year is the knockout section of the T20 Blast, which will end at Edgbaston on October 3.
Of course, there will still be room for overseas professionals. But county cricket is suffering, along with almost every other industry, and will have less money to spend on such luxuries. That door is closing for players currently on Kolpak deals. Add to the equation the parlous state of the game in South Africa, which can only make prospective professionals doubt that cricket is stable enough in the country to be worth pursuing as a career, and it isn’t difficult to understand why the end of Kolpak is far from a reason to be unconditionally cheerful.
“We already have current players asking, ‘Must I work on my plan B?’,” Andrew Breetzke, the chief executive of the South African Cricketers’ Association, said. “The fact that the South Africans in the IPL are pulling their weight in their teams is evidence that, to make a living in the game, top cricketers don’t need South African cricket at that level. That is worrying, especially when you look at the turmoil in the South African cricket landscape. Of course, the players have got to get to [IPL] level, and for that they do need South African cricket.”
The market is also being squeezed from outside the country, and more so than in other sports. “If you’re a Stormers [franchise rugby union] player and you’re not quite making it for the Springboks you can still get a gig somewhere overseas,” Breetzke said. “There’s a career outside of South Africa even for non-Springboks, but there isn’t necessarily a career outside of South Africa for the non-Protea. Every guy who makes it overseas has actually made it as a Protea. That makes a cricket career much more difficult.”
Considering all that, should South Africans be pleased that Kolpak is due to disappear from the cricket vocabulary next year? “From a SACA perspective, we always want to have as many playing opportunities and earning possibilities for our members,” Breetzke said. “Kolpak was one such opportunity. If you look at someone like Dane Vilas, it’s done wonders for his ability to keep playing as a professional. From that perspective, it is sad.”
Wicketkeeper-batter Vilas played a T20I and six Tests from March 2012 to January 2016. Although a quality gloveman and more than decent with the bat — he has scored 21 first-class centuries — Vilas had AB de Villiers breathing over one shoulder and Quinton de Kock over the other. In an age of superstar batters being turned into wicketkeepers, Vilas was always going to come third in that company. But since 2017 he has been able to juggle playing for the Dolphins with turning out for Lancashire on a Kolpak contract.
Now what? Vilas has petitioned the ECB to stay on as an overseas player for the 2021 season on the strength of the fact that his wife holds a UK ancestral visa. But a letter from Alan Fordham, the ECB’s head of operations for first-class cricket, suggests that isn’t a strong enough argument.
The letter, which Cricbuzz has seen, is dated September 24 and is addressed shotgun style in an indication of how enmeshed Kolpak players are in the English system: “To first-class county cricket clubs, WEDS [Women’s Elite Domestic Structure] regional hosts, men’s Hundred teams, women’s Hundred teams, PCA [the Professional Cricketers’ Association], ICC Europe, Cricket South Africa, Zimbabwe Cricket, Cricket West Indies, Cricket Ireland”.
It confirms what has long been on the cards: “All Kolpak players currently registered as a regulation 2 [non-UK national] player will have their registration cancelled by the ECB with effect from 1 January 2021.” And that: “No further applications by any Kolpak player for registration as a regulation 2 player will be accepted (unless such a player meets the eligibility criteria detailed in the amended Regulation 2). And, with apparent reference to players like Vilas: “The above will apply regardless of whether such player currently holds, or is able to obtain, an ancestral or family visa giving them the right to work in the UK.”
Fordham makes the point that, “Should the 31 December 2020 end date of the [Brexit] transition period change, the above changes will be subject to further review by the ECB.” But that seems unlikely.
Having taken off his trade unionist’s hard hat, Breetzke could see the other side of the argument: “From a South African perspective, [the end of Kolpak] brings certainty to an area that has been controversial on various levels — financially and politically. As it stands we don’t have one Kolpak player who is contracted within South Africa; such has been the move towards not contracting Kolpak players.
“Now we’ll have a number of players who become available to be contracted domestically who previously, from a practical point of view, weren’t able to be. Legally they could have been, but that would have needed money from outside the franchise [salary] allocation and they never had it. Now you can contract Simon Harmer as a Warriors players from the allocation because he’s going to be an overseas professional [in England] and be a local in South Africa again.
“It opens up the game for South Africans coming back. It’s actually a positive for the strength of South African cricket. It takes away the issue of whether we should be supporting players who can’t play for South Africa, which was a very strong narrative.”
That’s not to say the future will be straightforward. “We will have normal domestic players who only have a domestic contract,” Breetzke said. “We’ll also have domestic players who are local but are foreign overseas players in England. And we’re going to have non-contracted South African players in the international market — AB de Villiers, Chris Morris; those guys. That does complicate how you’re going to select for the Proteas. Must the player have played in that domestic competition to be considered for the Proteas in that specific format?”
South Africans have cursed Kolpak since 2004, when Claude Henderson became the first player to agree to its restrictive terms. Now, as the end of the age looms, they might find they have new reasons to keep swearing.
First published by Cricbuzz.
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