Klaasen, Baartman dominated SA20 stats last season

It is a measure of the quality of the SA20 that only two batsmen in the top 20 run-scorers in the first two years of the tournament’s history do not possess a full international cap while only two bowlers among the leading wicket-takers without an international cap appear in seventh and 20th place.

Internationals from South Africa to England, West Indies to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka to New Zealand – and the Netherlands (via the Proteas) – dominate the lists of the most run and wicket-hungry players in the competition.

The younger, uncapped players in all six franchises may have most to gain in terms of experience and learning by playing alongside the established internationals but that has not stopped the cream from rising to the top in the first two years of the SA20 which has seen the Sunrisers Eastern Cape twice crowned champions.

Heinrich Klaasen and Jos Buttler might be the most consistently destructive batsmen in the T20 game over the last 3-4 years so their place at the top of the batting list. Nonetheless, 800 in 23 and 22 matches are staggering achievements. But a bowler with a return of two wickets per game over the course 15 matches, as Ottneil Baartman has achieved for the Durban Super Giants, is every bit as impressive as Klaasen’s eye-watering strike rate of 185.77 for the same team.

Home venues, where players play half of their games, need to be considered when strike rates are measured and Buttler’s 137.99 must be weighed against Boland Park’s notoriously slow pitches and large outfield upon which boundaries are more difficult to accumulate than anywhere else.

The non-international ‘interlopers’ on the batting list are led by South African Leus du Plooy who is widely accepted as of international standard but, having chosen to make use of his Hungarian passport to play county cricket for Derbyshire and Middlesex as a ‘local’, he has fallen between call-ups for the land of his birth and that of his chosen career.

Top of the bowling ‘interlopers’, in seventh place, is Pretoria Capitals’ allrounder, Eathan Bosch, who must surely earn a Proteas cap sooner rather than later such is his value with both bat and ball. Another undervalued and under-appreciated allrounder is Paarl Royals’ Evan Jones whose 15 wickets so far may have been regarded as a happy bonus given his power-hitting prowess.

In 13th place on the batting list is another man surely destined for full international honours. Jordan Hermann may well earn a test cap before a T20I call-up but his adaptability between formats has played an important role in the Sunrisers’ success. He is not the first young player, and certainly won’t be the last, to benefit from playing in a high-intensity environment with so many established world-class stars.

Among the (very) many brilliant players who don’t feature in the top-20s is Kyle Verreynne, the incumbent test wicketkeeper whose 290 runs from 12 games have come at a strike rate of 155.91 including a century and a 50. Perceptions are everything, but so are statistics, and so is analysis. You make your mind up…