The captain of all three South African Women's teams, Dané van Niekerk, has failed to make the cut for this month's T20 World Cup after failing to meet Cricket South Africa's fitness requirements.
Van Niekerk has not played international cricket in any format since September 2021. That lack of fitness has paved the way for all-rounder Sune Luus to captain the side in the competition beginning February 11th.
Luus has been captaining the side in the ongoing tri-series coming to a close in England, where Luus will lead her team out against India in the final. This series could have been an opportunity for van Niekerk to gain some much-needed game time, but failed a fitness test for that too, and now selectors are coming out to explain their decision.
South African selector Clinton du Preez spoke to ESPNcricinfo and emphasised how van Niekerk was given ample opportunity to make her way back in.
"Dané was given an extensive opportunity to meet the minimum criteria, or the fitness benchmark for eligibility into the World Cup," she said.
"She recently did another fitness test and unfortunately did not meet the minimum criteria, and therefore she's missed out. It's purely based on the not meeting of the fitness criteria that she's missed out."
What van Niekerk specifically failed to do is run two kilometres in under 9 minutes 30 seconds, falling short by 18 seconds which is a commendable effort for someone returning from a broken ankle injury.
These fitness standards have been a matter of controversy for the South African women's team, and things got especially negative last year when Lizelle Lee retired after being told she was overweight; at the time, she admitted to feeling victimised and body-shamed.
With this controversy, South Africa will begin their home World Cup with a very inexperienced team hoping to be able to turn the tables in their favour with big home crowds.
