The 10-team IPL 2023 has opened opportunities for more players than ever in the IPL, especially with scouts of every franchise targetting unknown and unheralded players and giving them chances to showcase their skills and talent on the biggest T20 stage in the world.
However, despite this, there have been a few highly talented overseas players who haven’t gotten a single opportunity yet in the IPL 2023. Some of them are South Africa, from where the new talent pool for the IPL franchises has emerged in recent years.
Here are 3 South African players who have been benched so far in IPL 2023:
Dewald Brevis
Dubbed as ‘Baby AB’ because of his batting similarities with AB de Villiers, Dewald Brevis is one of the brightest upcoming talents in the world. After bursting onto the scene in the ICC Under-19 World Cup 2022, Brevis made his mark in the IPL 2022 for the Mumbai Indians. The young South African featured in 7 innings and scored 161 runs at a strike rate of 142. Mumbai also roped him in their SA20 team, MI Cape Town, where he impressed but was inconsistent.
In the IPL 2023, though, Brevis hasn’t gotten a single game year as MI have went ahead with their expensive signing, Australian all-rounder Cameron Green ahead of Brevis. Green, Tim David, and two other pacers – rotated between Archer, Behrendorff, Meredith, and Duan Jansen – have been picked as 4 overseas players.
Tristan Stubbs
Tristan Stubbs is another young South African batter who made his IPL debut for Mumbai Indians last year. Stubbs got into the South African team ahead of Brevis as their powerful finisher down the order and was part of the T20 World Cup team in Australia last year.
Despite being more learned and experienced at the international stage, Stubbs didn’t get a chance for MI yet, as explained above with Green and Tim David being the first-choice overseas players along with two other foreign pacers to compensate for the loss of Bumrah and Richardson.
Lungi Ngidi
It is quite a surprise that South African pacer Lungi Ngidi hasn’t played a game yet out of the 9 matches Delhi Capitals have played so far. Ngidi is one of the world’s finest death overs bowlers who uses his slower variations and extra bounce because of his height to his advantage.
By consequence and choice, Delhi’s used overseas players have been: Warner (captain), Marsh, and Nortje have played regularly and have been first-choice players when available, while the 4th slot has been filled up by Phil Salt(keeper), Mustafizur Rahman, Rilee Rossouw, and Rovman Powell.
