On Thursday, Cricket South Africa (CSA) has announced the men’s national contracts for the 2018/19 cricket season. While Aiden Markram and Lungi Ngidi have the first time earned the national contract, Farhaan Behardien, Wayne Parnell, Aaron Phangiso, Stephen Cook etc. have been released from the contract.
The new term is going to begin from the 1st April 2018 and will run until the 2019 ICC Cricket World Cup, which will be organized in England and Wales from 30th May 2019 to 14th July 2019.
During this term, South Africa will play the full home series against Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, while they have also the FTP away scheduled in Sri Lanka and Australia.
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While the last season CSA had listed 21 players for the national contract, now they have cut down and comeback to the normal standard number of 18 players for the upcoming season’s national contract.
Speaking about that, the interim Chief Executive of CSA, Thabang Moroe commented, “We made an exception last year in increasing the number of contracted players to 21 but this year we are comfortable that the normal standard number of 18 will be appropriate to maintain our national squads across all three formats.”
He added, “This enables us to contract both our Test players as well as those who are limited overs specialists.”
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23-years old Aiden Markram and 21-years old Lungi Ngidi are the only two players who have been awarded the national contract for the first time. Talking about them, Moroe quoted, “Aiden and Lungi have both made an immediate impact on the international scene and this is a continuation of our policy of having a strong squad with a good mix of young and experienced world-class stars.”
While 33-years old Morne Morkel is expectedly removed from the next national contract due to his upcoming retirement, Farhaan Behardien, Wayne Parnell, Aaron Phangiso and Stephen Cook are the other cricketers who have been expelled from the new national contract.
CSA men’s national contracted players (2018/19):
Hashim Amla, Temba Bavuma, Quinton de Kock, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, Faf du Plessis, Dean Elgar, Imran Tahir, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Chris Morris, Lungi Ngidi, Andile Phehlukwayo, Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Dale Steyn.
