South African cricket entered a brave new world over the weekend.

No, it wasn’t because the Proteas suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of our neighbours, Namibia, on Saturday, with the underdogs securing a four-wicket victory off the last ball of the match.

While this in itself was something to take note of, with T20 cricket in the Associate (or non-Test playing) countries seemingly going from strength to strength, there was something else that made Saturday’s match notable.

This was the fact that while South Africa was playing a T20 match in Windhoek another fully representative South African side was preparing to take on Pakistan in a Test match in Lahore, starting on Sunday.

The team that took on Namibia, while a decent XI, was missing a number of players who would have been selected for the T20 versus Namibia if they hadn’t been on the other side of the world, getting ready to take on Pakistan.

As the calendar tightens from both directions, the international programme on one side and the global T20 circuit, on the other parallel squads will become normal

Already the Indian Premier League (IPL), the world’s biggest T20 league and by some measures the second-richest sports league in the world, has been given a window in the annual international cricket schedule. Very little international cricket is scheduled for when the IPL is played (normally over an eight-week period in April and May), ensuring that the various IPL sides have their star overseas players available for the entire tournament.

Not a first

South Africa’s fielding of two different fully representative sides, playing matches on different sides of the world, is not a first however. As far back as 1930 two different English sides played Test matches at the same time – an English side toured New Zealand while another toured the West Indies. Both were considered full English sides.

This occurrence – with one country fielding two sides at the same time – was unique in world cricket for some time, but has become more common in the last few years, even before South Africa had to field two teams because of the increasingly busy international schedule.

In 2021 India was touring England for a Test series. However, at the same time India was touring Sri Lanka for a white-ball series. India did what South Africa did this weekend and sent two different (but fully representative teams) to their respective series.

Australia did it too in 2017 when it fielded red ball and white ball teams at the same time in 2017. Their Test side were engaged in a Test match against India away, while the T20 side clashed with Sri Lanka at home.

What started out as anomalies will increasingly become the norm.

Diverge

T20 and Test cricket may even diverge to the extent that seven-man and fifteen-man rugby have. While the basic rules and gameplay are the same, professionals make a career in one sport or the other. While occasionally someone might make their name in the sevens game and move into the fifteen-man game (Kwagga Smith comes to mind) there is increasingly a firewall between the two codes.

But these new developments in sport should be embraced, rather than pushed back against it.

Cricket is still a widely followed sport in part because of its adaptability. While it is often associated with traditionalism it has shown itself to be nimble when it has to be, and to evolve along with the rest of the world.

Something like T20s, where a whole match is done in about three hours, would have been unthinkable to those who used to follow the so-called Timeless Tests, matches played until there was a result, no matter how long the game went on for (the longest Test match on record lasted for eleven days and still ended in a draw – only in cricket).

But innovation in cricket is not new – there used to be only two stumps rather than three and overarm bowling used to be illegal. Limited-overs themselves games are also a fairly new innovation, with the first limited-over tournament for professional teams only being played in the 1960s.

Other innovations, like white balls and coloured clothing are also new – the first World Cups in the sport were all played with white kit and red balls.

All these developments have made the game stronger and spread its appeal.

Embrace change

Traditionalists may complain about some essence of the game being lost as T20 proliferates over longer forms of the game, and while this may be true, cricket needs to function in the world as it is, not in some idealised version of it.

Cricket is changing and South Africa needs to embrace that change rather than pushing back against it. And to the sport’s credit in this country it appears to have done that – the SA20 competition is arguably the second-best and second-most widely followed T20 league in the world, after the IPL.

At the same time the national side has remained strong – we are the World Test Champions, made the semi-finals of the last 50-over World Cup, and the finals of the last T20 World Cup. It is clear that innovation can be embraced while keeping the traditions of the sport strong too.

What happened this weekend – where two different Proteas teams are effectively playing at the same time – is likely to only become more common. But this should be welcomed, not feared.