The Indian Premier League (IPL) starts today. The recently renamed Royal Challengers Bengaluru (RCB) will take on the defending champion Chennai Super Kings in the tournament’s curtain-raiser. One of the premier tournaments in world sport, this year’s IPL takes on an even greater sense of importance, as it is taking place just before the 2024 World T20 in the West Indies and the Caribbean. South Africa’s T20 team is mostly settled, I’d venture. Reeza Hendricks, Quinton de Kock, David Miller, Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, and Rassie van der Dussen form an established top six. On the bench, Tristan Stubbs appears to be next in the rank.
With that level of establishment, it would probably take an exceptional performance for a player to break into the batting team, or some kind of pedigree. Enter Faf du Plessis, the RCB captain. Du Plessis is one of the premier batsmen in T20 and has been for nearly fifteen years. In that time, he’s participated in three World T20 tournaments, three 50-over World Cups, and a decade of IPLs. Du Plessis has the fifteenth most IPL runs in the tournament’s history, and less than 500 runs stand between him and a top-10 spot, so an exceptional tournament will see him enter the elite of the elite in the competition.
That said, while class is indeed permanent and pedigree is important, form has to count for something. When we last spoke about this, du Plessis was in the middle of a horror run of form. He’s somewhat corrected that, with three scores above fifty in his last five knocks. Du Plessis will be hoping to use that good run of form as a springboard and have the sort of IPL that makes him an obvious selection.
Assuming he does get selected, however, we enter the next phase of the question: where exactly would he even break in? Hendricks has arguably been the most in-form batsman in T20 internationals over the last two years, averaging 43.5 at a strike rate of 149. De Kock has struggled for runs since the 2023 Cricket World Cup, but he’s a match-winner who is fresh off his definitive performance in ICC competition. It feels unrealistic to argue that du Plessis would be selected ahead of him. At number three, Aiden Markram would probably be the most undroppable batsman in the team because he’s the captain and also the highest-ranked bat in the team.
David Miller and Heinrich Klaasen are the dynamic duo, the most explosive middle order in T20 cricket. Considering du Plessis has been plying his trade as an opener in the T20 circuit, it feels pretty unrealistic to think he would break up the most destructive pairing in T20 internationals.
Rassie van der Dussen is probably the most vulnerable player in the top six. He was not selected for the India T20s, although he got fortunate in that regard, as none of his prospective replacements, Matthew Breetzke, Donovan Ferreira, or the aforementioned Stubbs, seemed to grab the spot with the necessary assertiveness.
None of this matters, of course, if Faf du Plessis doesn’t have an IPL that makes him worthy of selection. He led the run-scorers charts in the round-robin phase last year, and it is hard to argue that he wouldn’t be worthy of selection if he does the same this year.
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