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Former South African captain Graeme Smith has expressed that he has no doubt about Faf du Plessis’ fitness and ability to represent South Africa again but stressed that the team management needs to take a call on whether they need free agents for the senior national team.
While speaking on the broadcast during the fifth T20I between India and South Africa. He said, “South Africa have got an equation where they have to figure out what their best XI is. Faf du Plessis is still fit, retired from the longer formats of the game and it’s that challenge that India doesn’t face free agents.”
“Players are playing in leagues around the world. How much time can he give to South Africa in the lead-up to the World Cup? Do they pick him straight for the World Cup or should he part of the build-up where he understands the team culture, the thinking, training and preparing.
“India doesn’t face that challenge but for other nations (dealing with) free agents is a difficult one, We know Faf has the ability, the team has to decide how much time he needs to spend with the team. Maybe he is in that phase of his life where is happy to play the leagues, he is retired maybe from international cricket, maybe that’s where he wants to be,” he added
I played for SA against England the plan was very much to play at the World Cup: Faf
Du Plessis was first dropped from the national squad before last year’s ICC World T20 Cup. Addressing this incident, “I am on a different journey now. Last year when I played for SA against England the plan was very much to play at the World Cup and that was the talk. It was really difficult though for Cricket SA and myself to find something that still allowed me to play overseas because that’s obviously why I retired from Test cricket especially,” Du Plessis told ESPN Cricinfo.
“They tried to but we couldn’t find a middle ground and I think they wanted people who were available all the time and that made it a challenge for the guys like myself and Imran Tahir because we were playing overseas as well. I think that’s the challenge now because we are playing overseas and they want us to play all the games which is an unrealistic expectation,” he added.