Kyle Abbott back out of his ‘comfort zone’ as he prepares for first one-day game since Hampshire’s Lord’s final in May 2019

Back then, the fast bowler was part of the Hampshire team that lost the Royal London Cup final to Somerset at Lord’s.

More than 19 months later, he is preparing for his first one-day game in his native South Africa since November 2014.

Abbott has been signed by the Centurion-based Titans franchise for the 50-over Momentum Cup tournament, featuring six teams playing behind closed doors at a single venue.

Titans have been grouped alongside holders Dolphins (who Abbott played for between 2010-2014) and Knights. The teams will play each other twice - a total of four group games for each side with the top two progressing to the semi-final.

Those teams will play all their games between January 9-16 at Senwes Park, Potchefstroom, before the three franchises in Group B - Cape Cobras, Lions and Warriors - play between January 29-February 5.

Titans’ meeting with Dolphins is the first of the 15 games scheduled for the competition.

Few professional cricketers have played fewer games than Abbott since the pandemic took its stranglehold on world sport last March.

Since January 1 2020, he has only played two T20 matches - for the Jaffna Stallions in the Sri Lankan T20 League last November and December. In total, Abbott bowled just five overs, conceded 61 runs and failed to take a wicket.

Since September 2019, when he last appeared for Hampshire, Abbott has taken just five wickets - all for Durban Heat in the South African T20 tournament in November of that year.

The international landscape has changed since the bowler last played in his home country.

Along with many of his fellow South Africans, Abbott had been classified as a Kolpak - a player free to play in English county cricket without being classified as overseas.

Following Brexit, Kolpaks are no more - freeing Abbott up to once again represent South Africa, for whom he played 11 Tests, 28 ODIs and 21 T20 internationals between February 2013 and January 2017 (after which he signed a Kolpak contract at Hampshire).

But a return to the international scene is nowhere near the front of his mind.

All he is concerned about is regaining match fitness with the Titans ahead of returning to The Ageas Bowl in March ahead of Hampshire’s 2021 season starting the following month.

The Titans are one of the more successful franchises in South African cricket, having won the Momentum one-day cup in 2008, 2009, 2015, 2017 and 2019.

Speaking via a press conference on Zoom that The News were invited to, Abbott was asked why he had chosen Titans ahead of the other franchises that were chasing his signature.

‘For me it was quite a simple one - after such a long lay-off in 2020 I felt I needed an environment that was going to get me back into cricket and focussing on cricket for an extended period of time,’ he said.

‘I have always admired how they have gone about their work, they are an incredibly professional set-up. It’s a hard environment and I felt I needed to get into something like that to get myself back playing.

‘It was a tough year, I think I bowled five competitive overs so I needed something out of my comfort zone, a place where I knew I was going to be tested and work hard.’

Regarding any ambitions to return to the international scene, Abbott said: ‘It’s a question I know a lot of people have asked me.

‘To be quite honest, it’s not in my immediate view.

‘I’ve had a tough 2020 not playing cricket so I need to get back to the space where I was almost 18 months, 15 months ago.

‘At the moment my objective is to get back playing professionally again, back to the level where I was. That’s proving to be quite difficult at the moment I must admit.

‘Though the body has had enough rest, it’s been quite difficult getting back to that competitive edge I suppose.’

These are changing times for cricket in South Africa. Not only are the former Kolpak players now available again for the national teams, the first-class structure in the country is about to change as well.

Instead of the six-team franchise tournament that has been in place for 17 years, a new two division competition - featuring 15 teams on an 8-7 split with promotion and relegation - will be introduced in 2021/22.

That is very similar to the English County Championship, of which Abbott is a huge fan.

‘I’ve said for ages that the first class system in the UK has to be one of, if not the strongest, system in the world,’ he commented.

‘The amount of teams that are competing every week for something, it can only strengthen cricket.

‘That whole Division 1, the top four or five are competing for the trophy and the bottom guys are competing for relegation. At any given stage you might only have two or three teams sort of out of it and not playing for much.

‘To have that strength and competitiveness in first class cricket is excellent, and it’s been a long time coming that Cricket South Africa needed to do something like this.

‘There will be more value on results. No-one wants to get relegated, it’s a terrible feeling - I have been on the brink of it. In 2017 when I arrived in the UK, down to the last hour of the last game of 14 games and it’s a horrible, horrible feeling knowing you could go down.’

Abbott is also convinced the ending of the Kolpak era will strengthen South African cricket.

That is hardly surprising, given the talent now available again to national selectors.

In 2019, as well as Abbott, the Kolpak brigade in English cricket included his Ageas Bowl colleague Rilee Rossouw, Simon Harmer (Essex), Dane Vilas (Lancashire), Colin Ingram (Glamorgan), David Wiese (Sussex) and Hardus Viljoen (Kent).

‘It’s good for South African cricket to keep the system strong,’ Abbott said of the former Kolpaks being available for South Africa again.

‘The less watered down the system is the better. We want to see South African cricket strong. That’s one of the reasons for coming back - I feel I still owe a lot to South African cricket. I’m excited to impart some of my knowledge back into the system. I can see South African cricket staying strong.’

Abbott agrees that Kolpak was a hugely polarising issue in his country.

‘People don’t realise it was never an easy decision for any of us at the time, having spoken to a lot of the Kolpaks,’ he said.

‘It’s not as easy as some people may think, from being away for six months to actually catching quite a lot of flak from people in the crowd and that.

‘As much as South Africans didn’t want to see Kolpaks go, a lot of English supporters didn’t want us there. There were a lot of things we had to navigate … yeah, as I said, we felt the outsiders there and we felt the outsiders here in South Africa.

‘But at the end of the day it’s our jobs. I do understand where the public are coming from, it’s an emotional thing, it’s a patriotic thing. I do get that, it’s stuff that’s on our minds and we do take into consideration.

‘But at the end of the day, for most of us it was purely a career move, a career decision, that I had to make at the time and I don’t regret anything that I did.’