On Dewald Brevis' Possible International Call-Up, Graeme Smith Gives Glimmer Of Hope

South African batter Dewald Brevis is one of the biggest talents in world cricket at the moment. Brevis, who rose to fame with his performances in the U-19 World Cup last year, has been often compared to former South Africa captain AB de Villiers. However, the 19-year-old is yet to represent the Proteas. Now, Graeme Smith, who is the SA20 League Commissioner, shared his views on Brevis, and hinted that the youngster could feature for South Africa very soon.

"Look, I mean, the fact that you're talking about him is terrific. You know what, that's what we want. We want to put young players on the stage that are challenging the incumbents. You know, I was just looking at the selection for the ODI series coming up, there's so much conjecture around why South Africa is not picking the young talent, you know, not giving them a chance and, you know, sticking with the tried and tested. So that's what we want to we would love to create is that this so many players and talking points that the selectors are under pressure to choose for this, you know, and I think Brevis is an extremely top talent, he plays the game with a lot of freedom. I mean, over time, you'll be able to find ways to prove his consistency. But I mean, to have that type of talent like him, Donovan Ferreira, you know, stuff that has that power, the ability to also play spin, well, and pace is huge. If you're going to be wanting to keep developing more and more. So I hope that these guys all lock the door down and over the next sort of six months that you start seeing a lot of them playing for the Proteas," Smith told NDTV during a chat, which was organised by Star Sports.

Brevis, who is currently taking part in the inaugural season of SA20 League, is part of Mumbai Indians' squad for the upcoming season of the IPL.

Last season, Brevis played seven matches in the IPL, scoring 161 runs at an average of 23.

On another question about the SA20 League uplifting the 'dying' cricketing scenario in South Africa, Smith said that he is hoping for the T20 league's fever to catch on and boost the cricketing ecosystem in the country.

"Yeah, I mean, we both in the league, I think everyone focuses on the commercial aspect, which is crucial, I guess, you know, you can't pull off something at this level, unless you've got really great partners and, you know, financially you can, you can do it. And also, I mean, one of the objectives was to deliver a commercially sustainable league to cricket in South Africa. I think it's well documented that the performances of the national team and just general negativity and around the guy being in the headlines for the wrong reasons, certainly in South Africa, you know, the politics and sort of distress at the admin level has taken its toll on the fan.

"I think there certainly has been a fatigue or negativity towards cricket in South Africa, when we started SA20 one of our objectives was to revive the fan was to bring some energy back to the game. And I think certainly we've seen that in the first two weeks of the tournament. It's been incredible you know, Monday nights and school nights Tuesday nights at the wonders when kids are going to get up the next day and go to schools it's unheard of to fill stadiums and to sell them up and it's been incredible to see the support that we received the energy that people in South Africa got for sa 20 and hopefully that will start to rub off on many factors in the game you know the support for cricket the sport for the Proteas. And you know the the youngsters in our stadiums,you know hopefully the dreams they'll have now are one playing SA20m representing South Africa and playing the game of cricket," he further said.

Topics mentioned in this article

South Africa Cricket Team Dewald Brevis AB de Villiers Graeme Smith Cricket