Kagiso Rabada will not play South Africa’s ODI series against India, with Cricket South Africa (CSA) looking to manage his workloads.
In a statement on Tuesday evening, less than 24 hours before the first ODI in Paarl, CSA said Rabada was being released from the squad “due to high workloads over a sustained period of time and the need for him to recover prior the outbound Test series against New Zealand next month”.
Rabada has been playing in bio-secure bubbles since early September, when he featured in three ODIs and three T20Is on South Africa’s tour of Sri Lanka. Soon after, he headed over to the second half of IPL 2021 in the UAE, where he played eight games for Delhi Capitals. That tournament ran straight into the T20 World Cup. There was a break of a month and a half following the global tournament, then South Africa’s Tests against India kicked off on Boxing Day. Now, the ODIs against India finish on January 23, and South Africa are set to leave for New Zealand on February 2, where they will have to undergo between 10 days and two weeks of quarantine. The two Tests against New Zealand start on February 17, and after that South Africa return home for two Tests against Bangladesh in mid-March.