- Dewald Brevis has already featured in numerous conversations with the new Proteas coaches Shukri Conrad and Rob Walter, even before their appointments.
- Enoch Nkwe, CSA’s director of cricket, believes the 19-year-old batting prodigy might have to follow David Warner’s path of T20 to Test cricket.
- The patchy state of domestic cricket could be a reason why Brevis’ prep for international cricket might rather lie in T20 tournaments for now.
Dewald Brevis will be one of the youngsters at the heart of the Proteas’ construction project towards success at the 2027 World Cup and Test revival, but his path might have to be an unorthodox, David Warner-like one.
Enoch Nkwe, Cricket South Africa’s (CSA) director of cricket, on Monday gleefully admitted that the 19-year-old batting prodigy has already sprung up prominently in conversations with both Shukri Conrad and Rob Walter, the men who’ve been appointed as the national team’s red-ball and white-ball coaches respectively.
However, he also intimated that Brevis’ already substantial exposure to various T20 franchise leagues might be a more productive way of preparing him – and possibly other promising age-group exponents – for international cricket, ostensibly because the domestic system either doesn’t provide the level of competition required nor remuneration.
It’s a strategy that famously worked for Australian star David Warner, who made his international T20 debut against South Africa in early 2009 before making his first-class debut, entrenched his reputation in the format and made a successful switch to Test cricket two years later.
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“There are a lot of noises around Dewald and we know how good he is, we’re seeing it again in the SA20 as well,” said Nkwe.
“He’s played some good cricket and he’s been particularly consistent in T20s. One theme that stood out in the recruitment process was that the respective formats are quite close to each other. They’re not far apart.
“The reality with our youngsters moving forward is that [they] might have to do the almost David Warner-like approach, where the transition phase from Under-19 to senior level cricket might have to come from T20 cricket, which then leads to ODIs and Test representation.
“That’s what we foresee happening in future and that’s part of our strategic thinking. We’re saying maybe we need to explore this and run with it for the next two years at least and see how it unfolds.”
Naturally, Conrad and Walter will need to have a big say.
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“We’ve had conversations with both coaches, not just Rob (who’s a former Titans coach, Brevis’ franchise). They are both big believers of looking after the younger generation, but not just throwing them [in] at the deep end. It’s about understanding and having a very detailed plan on each player that’s been identified and how they’ll form part of the Proteas,” said Nkwe.
“We understand that Dewald has a lot of cricket that he still has to play in other formats, but how do we get him there? Because we know he can offer a lot to South African cricket. There are many youngsters that might go the same route and we have to be open-minded to that.”
Yet what does that say about the overall domestic circuit?
Nkwe hopes a clearer picture will emerge once the review into the Proteas’ failed T20 World Cup campaign, which has now been extended in scope, is finalised in “due course”.
“There have been a lot of questions over the report we commissioned at the conclusion of the T20 World Cup. I want to clarify that we’ve been busy with that, but it’s not been confined to that campaign anymore. We’ve picked up that we need to dive deeper into our system. There are some issues we need to tackle,” he said.
“Once we’re in a position to share, we’ll include all stakeholders. But it’s actually just not about that World Cup anymore, there’s a lot more to it. It shouldn’t just about the Proteas, it should be about the system and how it supports the Proteas. Ensuring we build a solid support structure.”
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