PRETORIA (SOUTH AFRICA) – Seam bowler Kyle Abbott said the end of the Kolpak system in England will bolster South African cricket’s attempts to keep its best talent at home in the domestic scene which is more competitive.
The exit of Britain from the EU plugged a loophole that gave anyone with a work permit from a country having an associate trading pact with the EU the same rights as an EU worker.
This has benefitted South African cricketers over the years and they have inked lucrative agreements with English counties that automatically disqualified them from representing the national team.
Abbott has inked an agreement with South Africa’s Titans franchise for the rest of the 2020-21 season. It is a return to the domestic first-class circuit for the first time since he joined Hampshire as a Kolpak player in 2017.
He was part of the South Africa international set-up at the time across all three formats. However, the 33-year-old has not played for his country since although he is a big performer in the county circuit.
In England, he gave up his international career for domestic cricket and is among 45 South Africans to do so under the Kolpak rule.
“With Kolpak gone it has closed the door for a lot of guys. That can only be good for South African cricket to keep the players here. The more experience and less watered down the (domestic) system the better,” Abbott said on Thursday.
“People don’t realise it was never an easy decision for any of us (Kolpak players). You catch a lot of flak from crowds. As much as South Africans didn’t want to see us go, the English crowds didn’t want to see us there.
“But at the end of the day, it was purely a career decision and I don’t regret anything I did.”