Conrad confident SA players will prioritise national duty over T20 leagues

Shukri Conrad expects South Africa's players to put international fixtures ahead of league pursuits as he looks to build his white-ball squads for next year's T20 World Cup and the 2027 home ODI World Cup. Conrad, whose role was expanded from the Test team to all-format coach on Friday, explained that he had already started the process of long-term planning with centrally-contracted players, with a view to ensuring their availability.

"We're going to put out the best Proteas side every time we play," Conrad said at a press conference to announce his appointment on Friday. "I've had conversations with our players, all-format players and guys that only play the one format that are contracted to us, that at every turn when the Proteas play, there's an expectation that they'll play for South Africa.

"The Proteas will never be a franchise team, the Proteas will never be a league, nor will it be a convenience. This is part of building a culture and building an environment that players want to be part of. Every single player is committed to that and wanting to be a part of it so I can quite comfortably say that at every turn the best Proteas side will be put out on the field."

Conrad's comments come against the backdrop of an increasingly packed calendar with South Africa playing almost non-stop from mid-June to mid-December. Some of their fixtures could be era defining - such as the World Test Championship (WTC) final against Australia at Lord's or the two-Test tours of Pakistan and India later in the year - and others, more preparatory.

They will play two Tests and a T20I tri-series in Zimbabwe in July and three T20Is and three ODIs each in Australia and England in August and September. Those series, however, clash with Major League Cricket (MLC), the Hundred and the Caribbean Premier League (CPL). Players such as Ryan Rickelton, Marco Jansen (both retained at the MLC) and David Miller (contracted to the Hundred but on a white-ball only central contract) will face a fixture clash. Conrad indicated that, following discussions, they will put South Africa first.

"This comes with careful planning and buy-in from everyone and I think going down this road just cleans up everything," he said. "It makes it less messy, [there will be] less conversation and less talk that can be quite polarising in many respects. It's clear; black and white: when South Africa plays, I want all my players available to play. If you choose not to play for South Africa, well, then we go down that road. Our all-format players have been spoken to. They are fully supportive of what I'm wanting to do and then we plan the year for them in advance."

Conrad has left space for mandatory rest periods, such as the conditioning blocks Jansen, Gerald Coetzee and Lungi Ngidi were put on at various stages of last summer, and for playing in leagues outside of international game time. "Where rest periods are going to be emphasised or suggested, it will be exactly that - a rest period. It won't be one where you can then go and play in another league," he said.

"By the same token, we still want our players to gain experience playing in leagues so when South Africa are not playing, guys are going to be free to play wherever they want because we want them to maximise their earning potential and then obviously come back to South Africa as better cricketers also. But when the Proteas play, and I can't put it more simply than that: all our players must be available for selection. If they make themselves unavailable for selection, well, that's a decision that they've made and the path that they've chosen."

Exactly what the ramifications of opting out of national duty will be were not disclosed and sources within South African cricket suggested Conrad could be more flexible as things unfold. He will also soon begin talking to players who are not contracted, such as Anrich Nortje, Heinrich Klaasen and Tabraiz Shamsi (who all opted out of central contracts but remain available for South Africa) and the likes of Dewald Brevis and Lhuan-dre Pretorius (who play in leagues) to map out their national futures. Conrad specifically wants to avoid situations where players do not feature in any bilaterals and are parachuted in for a World Cup or one where a severely under-strength national squad has to take the field.

He already has experience of the latter, when he was forced to take a Test squad without most of his frontline players to New Zealand last year because of a clash with the SA20. As a staunch Liverpool supporter, he likened that situation to "when Burnley went to Anfield," and said, "that thankfully won't happen again."

The SA20 will avoid fixture clashes with all South African internationals in future, and the existence of the tournament has also meant South African players have a home-grown avenue to earn substantial amounts of money from. CSA has not yet restricted how many other leagues they can play in but it has been mooted that they would permit NOCs for the IPL and one other league only in future.

Conrad's concern is less about that and more around what he needs to achieve with the national side over the next two-and-a-half years. He has already taken the Test team to the WTC final, and his predecessor Rob Walter got them to the T20 World Cup final last year. It's now for Conrad to go one step further.

"Rob obviously laid a really good foundation and did some wonderful things. You only need to look at the performances at ICC events to see that. I'll try and build on what Rob has done," Conrad said. "Those processes have started already. As recently as this morning, I chatted to some of our players at the IPL and abroad in terms of potentially what their year can look like in terms of active involvement. The planning processes have started and it will be modified as we go along. I'm excited and looking to build on what Rob has done and take whatever good things we've done in the Test space and hopefully transfer that into the white-ball space as well."

For now, Test cricket remains Conrad's primary focus and he called it the "immediate project." South Africa will announce their WTC final squad on May 13. They have a warm-up fixture against Zimbabwe at Arundel from June 3 to 6 before the final, which starts on June 11. Conrad's white-ball support staff has not been confirmed but he is considering bringing in T20 specialist coaches in particular.