Former captain Faf Du Plessis is among four South African internationals to nominate for the new Big Bash League draft.
Du Plessis was officially the first player to nominate, but was shortly after joined by compatriots Rilee Rossouw, David Wiese and Marchant de Lange.
Du Plessis scored 11,198 runs in his international career before turning his attention to the T20 market. He is currently the skipper of the Royal Challengers Bangalore IPL team.
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Du Plessis has not played in the Big Bash for nearly a decade – he played one game for the Melbourne Renegades in the second year of the BBL just days after earning man of the match honours on his Test debut in Adelaide in 2012/2013, having batted the entirety of the final day to save the match for the Proteas.
Rossouw also played for the Renegades for a single season in 2019/2020, while Wiese and de Lange will be looking at their first summers in Australia.
Cricket Australia’s BBL general manager Alistair Dobson said the nominations represented an “endorsement of the BBL draft” and “of the BBL’s unique offering as a great experience for players and their families in the Australian summer”.
“We believe it is the players’ favourite competition, and we thank these players for making themselves available for the KFC BBL,” he said.
At over 200cm tall, de Lange is best known for taking 7/81 in the first innings on debut against Sri Lanka in 2011.
Wiese spent the first part of his international career playing for the Proteas, before signing a Kolpak deal – in short a work visa for sports players – to play county cricket in the UK, which made him ineligible. He has since reappeared in international colours for Namibia.
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