Van Niekerk in women's T20 World Cup commentary panel

Dane van Niekerk will be part of the women's T20 World Cup, which starts in Cape Town today, but as part of the ICC's commentators' panel.

She will be joined by another former South Africa captain, Mignon du Preez, who retired from international cricket last year, Mithali Raj, Sana Mir, Katey Martin, Lisa Sthalekar, Stacy-Ann King and a host of internationally recognised broadcasters.

Both van Niekerk and du Preez have also put their names up for the WPL auction, which will take place on Monday, the same day as South Africa's game against New Zealand.

Van Niekerk, who hasn't played internationally since September 2021, had been on a comeback trail and had hoped to make the squad for the World Cup, but was omitted from the squad after failing to meet the CSA's two-kilometre time trial requirement of 9.30 minutes. She ran a personal best of 9 minutes 48 seconds in that trial.

She described herself on social media as being "absolutely broken" at the time, and is understood to be considering her international future. Her decision would likely hinge on the outcome of the WPL auction - whether she got a deal and whether CSA issued her a no-objection certificate considering their policy has been to withhold permission for a player to participate in an overseas league if they have not passed the fitness test.

Van Niekerk has previous commentary experience and was part of the SuperSport team during the South Africa men's ODI series against India in early 2022. At the same, she had just broken her ankle and was ruled out of the 2022 ODI World Cup.

Among van Niekerk's roles at the tournament would be to commentate on her wife, Marizanne Kapp. Speaking to the Afrikaans newspaper Rapport, Kapp, who missed South Africa's T20 tri-series final against India last week for personal reasons, admitted the couple had endured a "tough week", but said she still regarded playing for her country as a "privilege", which she would not take for granted.