How incredible, it must be asked, would Rassie van der Dussen be feeling at this point of time?
It’s probably one of those days in van der Dussen’s simple, well-traveled and cricket-devoted life where he maybe feeling settled, once and for all.
Playing Cricket All Over
For someone who pretty much played Cricket everywhere possible, be it- England, The Netherlands, Canada, and the Caribbean- finally the middle-order batsman Rassie van der Dussen would now feel more at home and more importantly, belonged.
The Pretoria, Transvaal-born right-hander has gained Cricket South Africa’s national contract.
This means he’s been added to South Africa’s revised set of list for centrally-contracted players for the 2019-20 season.
He is, at present, the 17th recipient of the national contract for the said season.
While at the periphery, this may seem like some regular news from South African quarters, it’s a crucial add-on for the Proteas.
At a time where the cricketing management has undergone a sea-change in both hierarchical structure and new joiners, the dependable batsman’s availability, across formats, is a significant gain for South Africa.
Here’s why van der Dussen is needed by the Proteas
No sooner had the legendary pacer Dale Steyn announced his exit from the Test arena than premier batsman Hashim Amla’s all-format retirement followed too, in just a matter of few days.
For a side that punched heavily on the experience of these two match-winners, losing two quality experienced names in the game is a loss about as mighty as losing one’s trekking gear whilst scaling a grand peak.
In addition, the likes of JP Duminy and Imran Tahir are no longer around, having bid adieu to the sport following their last World Cup appearances in 2019.
At these times, there’s an immediate vacancy in SA’s middle-order.
Moreover, with Faf at the helm of the leadership, keen to begin again, pivotal forces are needed around which the rebuilding narrative can be built.
One could say that the core strength of the Proteas stems from playing a close-knit brand of competitive, attacking cricket. But for it to function as one collective, there needs to be as much flair as experience.
So even as van der Dussen may have batted no more than 14 times for South Africa in ODIs, at 30, he’s got more than a fair share of experience of playing both white-ball and red-ball cricket.
It could be said that he got to cut his teeth in international cricket at the highest possible level, participating in the 2019 World Cup.
It possibly couldn’t have been a bigger stage than facing chin music from the best names in operation in the mother of all sporting battles.
And lest it is forgotten, van der Dussen didn’t disappoint.
He’ll hopefully go onto convert his patient starts into bright and meaningful scores, his bat hopefully due for several centuries for his side but a critical moment that helped assess his caliber arrived in the World Cup game against Australia.
In South Africa’s campaign closing encounter in a tournament that barely gave them anything worth remembering and a lot to chew about, Dussen hung in there along with his captain and contributed a solid 95.
A slow start that saw him mistime several shots would quickly transpire into the 1s and 2s and would eventually see the Transvaal-bat break into a flurry of big shot, scoring much-needed runs at the time of South African duress.
While Faf would play the vanguard of South African batting as one presumes in the days to come, it’ll be up to the likes of Markram and van der Dussen to arise as the crucial support-system that the team can fall back on.
And so far, the future looks bright for the mild-mannered bloke, 7 of his 14 ODI knocks yielding memorable half-centuries.