Kagiso Rabada Puts International Cricket Ahead of IPL 2023

image-lft52hioKagiso Rabada will turn up for Punjab Kings in IPL 2023 [Source: Twitter]

The advent of T20s has made it difficult for players to concentrate on just international cricket. While players from India, England, and Australia can still do away with the greed of franchise cricket, players from other nations might not resist that call.

Cricket South Africa (CSA) for the past few years has been facing this dilemma, and only recently gave directives to centrally-contracted players to put the nation forward. Several Indian Premier League-bound players will feature in the two-ODI series against the Netherlands, much to the irk of franchises. 

Fast bowler Kagiso Rabada, who has been sensational in the IPL since his debut, has said he would prefer to play international cricket over the league despite its financial gains. 

As quoted by BusinessLive, Rabada asserted that Test cricket remains the purest formest despite the rise in T20 viewership. 

Here's what Rabada said

“I still prefer playing international cricket — that’s the pinnacle. But the IPL is a magnificent tournament. My only thing is that [the IPL] doesn’t take away from Test cricket and ODIs, which people say is dying, because people are focusing on T20. 

I still believe the truest form of the game is Test cricket. As much as you get your good T20 players, where you get tested the most is Test cricket, it’s the purest form,"

The 27-year-old will join the Punjab Kings side for the upcoming 2023 after the completion of the ODI series. The lanky bowler is one shy of 100 IPL wickets, sitting on 99 from 63 matches.

Punjab will play the Kolkata Knight Riders in Mohali on April 1 in their opening match of the season.