South Africa pace bowler Kyle Abbott and batsman Rilee Rossouw have signed Kolpak deals with English county club, Hampshire.
Right-arm seamer Abbott, 29, returns to the county he played for as an overseas signing in 2014, taking 36 Championship wickets, on a four-year deal. Opening batsmen Rossouw, 27, has joined Hampshire on a three-year deal. Rossouw played 36 ODIs and 15 T20Is for South Africa after making his international debut in August 2014.
While he had never quite secured a long-term spot in South Africa’s squads, Rossouw was their highest run-scorer in their most recent limited-overs series: he played all five ODIs against Australia at home in October 2016 and scored 311 runs at an average of 78.
Abbott announced his retirement from international cricket at the end of South Africa’s second Test win against Sri Lanka in Cape Town on Thursday.
“It’s been one of the hardest decisions I’ve had to make through my years of playing cricket,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s the right decision for me.”
He did not take a wicket in the Proteas’ 282-run victory, which was his 11th Test. Abbott had struggled to cement his spot in the Proteas side since his debut in 2013, but has recently become an integral part of the bowling unit due to long-term injuries to Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel. He was among South Africa’s best bowlers in their 2-1 series win in Australia this summer, taking 13 wickets at 14.84 in two Tests.
They have been signed as Kolpak players, making them ineligible to play for the Proteas for the duration of their county contracts. The players are lured to England by far more lucrative deals than they’d get in South Africa; for example, The Guardian reported in December that Van Zyl’s deal with Sussex is worth around three times what he would earn for his South African domestic side, the Cobras.
South Africans are able to play in England under the Kolpak ruling, a 2003 European Court of Justice decision that gave rights of freedom of work and movement to citizens of countries that had signed European Union Association Agreements. For county cricket, it opened the door for clubs to circumvent restrictions on signing international players and contract South African cricketers as Kolpak players under EU law.
There is uncertainty about the future for the Kolpak ruling following the United Kingdom’s referendum in favour of leaving the European Union, which is seen as a factor in the rapidly increasing exodus of talent out of South Africa.
