Johannesburg - Kagiso Rabada hopes Cricket South Africa will heed lessons from his latest bout of workload problems after it was highlighted as part of the reason for his poor performance at the recent T20 World Cup in Australia.
On the day of South Africa’s departure for Australia, Rabada said he needed the break after the World Cup. He and the T20 team’s captain, Temba Bavuma, were the only two players who are part of the Australia tour group, who were allowed not to feature in the domestic Four-Day series.
“I’m not one to make any excuses, I wasn’t up to scratch,” Rabada said of his performances at the T20 World Cup. “I had a disappointing tournament, but I guess it is what it is. I didn’t feel that great in terms of energy. I still tried my best, it just felt that the harder I tried, it just wasn’t really coming out. But you have to work with what you have and find a way. It’s not a real excuse, but it is the way I felt.”
Rabada picked up only two wickets in the tournament in five matches, at an average of 75.50, while his strike-rate was an underwhelming 9.44.
In an interview with Afrikaans weekend publication, Rapport, the Proteas’s bowling coach, Charl Langeveldt expressed his concern about Rabada’s workloads. “He is now 27, and he is not a robot. If we don’t make a plan, he will burn out,” he said. “KG is a very proud player. He hates losing. And the T20 World Cup defeats hurt him. He sets very high standards, and he bowls an incredible amount of balls in the nets.”
It’s the second time Rabada’s heavy workloads has surfaced at an ICC event. It was the same in 2019 when he had a poor 50-over tournament with concerns having arisen over his participation in the Indian Premier League that year. On that occasion, then Proteas coach Ottis Gibson wanted to pull Rabada out of the IPL at the halfway stage of the competition, but it was only after CSA medical staff detected a back ailment, that he was allowed to leave a week before a training camp with the Proteas.
“If it’s happened twice then it is something that seriously needs to be considered. It is what I have realised and I am sure management have realised too. We need to come up with some plans, not just for me, but for all players,” said Rabada.
Cricket SA have sought to give breaks to Rabada when possible; he’s played just five of the 12 ODIs this year - playing no part in the series in England - he also missed four of the 18 T20 Internationals, and two Tests against Bangladesh, although with the latter, that was to do with his participation in the IPL.
Rabada did play in all 14 matches for his IPL franchise, the Punjab Kings, and while that tournament only demands four overs be bowled, it is a high intensity competition and between training sessions there is also plenty of travel.
“It is a concern with the amount of cricket that is being played nowadays and basically it needs to be managed and plans need to be made accordingly,” said Rabada, who last played on November 6 in South Africa’s loss to the Netherlands at the T20 World Cup, a defeat which saw the side knocked out of the competition. His next match for the Proteas will be the first Test against Australia that starts on December 17.
“You can feel it in the intensity of your play, your intensity is not where you want it to be, and it catches up with you over time. Playing at international level, you want to be at high intensity more often than not, it's just a challenge that needs to be met.”
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