Faf du Plessis’ future as ODI and T20I captain remains uncertain

With the full tour of India just around the corner‚ Faf du Plessis will continue in his role as the Proteas Test captain but his future as the white ball leader remains unclear.

Cricket South Africa's acting Director of Cricket Corrie van Zyl said up-coming International Cricket Council (ICC) engagements in the form of next year's T20 World Cup in Australia and the 2023 World Cup in India mean that a different leadership trajectory is required for those tournaments.

The T20 World Cup will start in October next year‚ giving CSA just over a year to get a leadership group and a nucleus of core players in place.

“We're also looking forward to 2023 and we're in need of a strategy that's geared towards that year.

"In terms of appointing the captain‚ we will look at how we approach that and we're going to be having a selection meeting soon to confirm this‚” Van Zyl said.

“Is Faf going to be the captain?

"He's going to be the captain of the Test team but we'll talk about the white ball strategy leading into 2023 and how that will affect decision-making."

At 35‚ Du Plessis hasn't been just a capable leader‚ but the one of the team's best batsmen.

In what was a disastrous World Cup where South Africa were seventh in the 10-team tournament with only three wins in nine matches‚ Du Plessis was SA's top run-getter with 387 runs at 64.50 with a 100 and three 50's.

His lone success couldn't mask what was a desperately dire performance‚ especially with the bat as he was SA's only batsman in the top 20 run-makers with him in 12th place.

Rassie van der Dussen's middle-order heroics saw him make 311 runs at 62 to be in 22nd place while Quinton de Kock was two positions below him with 305 runs at 38.50.

Those statistics alone highlight SA's World Cup batting failures and how it scuppered their tournament participation before it even begun.

It's clear SA are in need of a new leader for the next ICC tournaments‚ but Du Plessis still picks himself on the strength of his batting alone.

SA's tour of India starts with the first of three T20 internationals on September 15‚ followed by three Tests and three ODI's.