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Allan Donald urges Morne Morkel to continue playing for South Africa

At least three counties are considering signing a Kolpak deal with Morne Morkel before the 2018 season. Warwickshire is one of them who are keen to have him on board.

© AFP
Morne Morkel © AFP

South Africa are on a losing spree. No, they aren’t exactly languishing at the bottom of the rankings across formats, but losing players to Kolpak deals. The list includes Stiaan van Zyl, Hardus Viljoen, Daryn Smit, Rilee Rossouw, Kyle Abbott, David Wiese, Simon Harmer and Dane Vilas, all of whom have struck deals with English counties in recent times, severing ties with South African cricket. In fact, there are even speculations that Hashim Amla may follow suit. With two top teams, India and Australia, set to tour South Africa in 2017-18, they can’t afford to lose out on more players. In this context, Allan Donald has requested Morne Morkel to continue playing for South Africa after reports of him joining Warwickshire is doing the rounds.

“Don’t reconsider your future. South Africa needs you. Your performances against England in the Test series were the best I have seen you bowl in a very, very long time. Give him what he wants. Let him retire on his terms. We need him this summer. I have not seen him bowl this well for many, many seasons. There’s no doubt, Morkel is world-class. It is just a shame that he did not take bucket loads of wickets in England because he deserved it. He beat the bat on countless occasions without reward”, Donald was quoted as saying by Titans’ official website.

Morkel is already weighing his future in international cricket.As per ESPNcricinfo reports he could be the next target of a Kolpak deal. At least three counties are considering signing a Kolpak deal with him before the 2018 season, Warwickshire being one of them.

During the recently-concluded England tour, Morkel had stated: “After this tour we’ll see. I’ll sit and speak with Cricket South Africa and see where they see me featuring. But I love playing for this team. It’s not rocket science that they probably want to start looking, in white-ball cricket, at the 2019 World Cup. Am I going to part of those plans? If I can be around to help the younger guys find their feet, so be it. I’ll do that. For me the main focus is this tour and then we’ll go back and see how we go.”

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