The upcoming SA20 will help South Africa coach Shukri Conrad pick three out of Aiden Markram, Quinton de Kock, Ryan Rickelton, Reeza Hendricks and Matthew Breetzke for his T20 World Cup squad. But it could also put some other names into contention, and one of them will be familiar.
Top-order batter Rassie van der Dussen has not played a T20I since August, and was left out of squads to play in Pakistan and India. But he remains available for national selection, and believes he has more to give.
"I know what I can offer. I'm literally taking it like tournament by tournament, and looking after my body," van der Dussen said at an MI Cape Town (MICT) training session at Newlands. "I don't have any plans of stopping anytime soon. I'm definitely not going anywhere. I don't have any long-term focus. I really want to do well now again for MICT, and in this tournament. I really want to do well in this tournament. It's a great tournament to be part of. And I am really chuffed to be here."
Van der Dussen has been among the overall top ten run-scorers in each of the previous three seasons of the SA20, and was MICT's leading batter in edition one and three. He was released from their squad ahead of the mega auction for 2025-26, but bought back for R5.2 million (approx. US$310,000) as MICT made it clear they want to keep him, and with good reason.
This year, van der Dussen was also the second-highest run-scorer in the CSA T20 Challenge despite playing three fewer matches than the batter who topped the charts. He is also only 27 runs away from scoring 1000 T20 runs for the second successive year. With a strike rate that sat at 142.24 last year and is a respectable 127.52 in 2025, van der Dussen is one of South Africa's most reliable performers. And that may be hard for Conrad to overlook. Asked what he thinks could push him into the coach's line of sight, van der Dussen did not shy away from making his case.
"Experience. Sometimes, these days, especially in T20 cricket, experience is put on the back burner a bit," he said. "But the one thing that experience gives you is a calm head. Often, you are playing situations, and coming up against guys you've probably come up against before. That's not spoken of enough, especially in international cricket.
"In leagues, people go quickly to whoever's new and whoever's young and whoever's fresh. From my side, I've been decent at the top of the order in the last few years. I keep improving and look for ways to improve, and try to look for small percentages."
It's not entirely clear why van der Dussen seems to have fallen out of favour at national level other than the fact that there is a glut of opening batters, and Conrad's preference for Markram at the top leaves space for only one other. De Kock, who made himself available again in October, has been the preferred choice, and he displaced Rickelton, who has struggled for form in the second half of the year.
Hendricks, also an MICT player, has not been able to replicate his run which saw him rack up seven half-centuries in 13 innings from July 2022 to December 2023. Breetzke, meanwhile, is thought to be a more aggressive player. Squeezing van der Dussen into a conversation with those names is tough, especially considering 19-year old Lhuan-dre Pretorius is waiting in the wings. Does that mean van der Dussen's age - he is now 36 - a factor? If it is, he is mitigating against that.
"I've changed my physical training programme in the last few months, and that's just dealing with getting older as well," he said. "The hunger's still there to play and to perform."
That, despite van der Dussen knowing that there are more years in his career behind him than in front.
"Going forward, I'm not sure how much I'll play," he said. "I'm lucky to be in a position where I can - not choose because I'll never say I'm someone to choose when or how I play. But with opportunities coming up, I can think of maybe giving something a skip. Or maybe I'll fight really hard to go after one of them. I'm in a good space."
That's similar to what van der Dussen's former team-mate Dwaine Pretorius, who is retired from international cricket, is experiencing. Earlier this week, Pretorius spoke about how going freelance has given him the ability to plan his playing time, and decide when he needs to spend time at home.
Van der Dussen doesn't quite have that luxury. He is on a hybrid contract with CSA, which means he has agreed to play certain bilateral series - but not all of them - and ICC events. That's why he was given permission to play at the CPL in September, and not required for South Africa's white-ball tour to England. Van der Dussen also played in the PSL for the last three years, and might return there next year.
Before that, he could find himself in the T20 World Cup squad. But a lot of things will have to go right. For one, van der Dussen will need to have a good SA20, and though he wouldn't wish it on his team-mates, Rickelton and Hendricks shouldn't have the same. Then, he would need Conrad to be convinced that Markram should bat lower down - and maybe where Markram finds himself with at DSG could be informative - and then for a combination of de Kock and van der Dussen to be the preferred one. In other words, the stars need to align. But if they don't, van der Dussen can live with that.
"My dad told me a year ago that if my career had to stop now, I can be really proud of what I've achieved," he said, perhaps reflecting on his ODI average, which is South Africa's second-best, and should see him still being talked about come the 2027 World Cup at home. "Ever since then, I've just sort of taken it day by day. I'm in a comfortable space at the moment, but still looking to improve. I'm trying to be more effective and more impactful."