Cape Town — JP Duminy may be taking his first tentative steps into the realms of professional coaching, but the former Proteas batter is already showing signs of developing into a formidable leader.
And part of that process is surrounding himself with experience, and South Africa’s highest run-scorer in T20 International cricket, has certainly done that in terms of the Paarl Royals playing personnel for the inaugural SA20 tournament set to be held in January.
Duminy and the rest of the Royals brainstrust went out hard in the first couple of picks at the auction in securing Proteas duo Lungi Ngidi and Tabraiz Shamsi before cooling down in a bid to land strategic choices later on.
This reaped dividends with the Royals securing England’s World Cup-winning captain Eoin Morgan almost at death. Morgan, who is revered for transforming England into a white-ball force, will join his fellow 2019 World Cup winners Jason Roy and Jos Buttler.
The latter is, of course, England’s currently limited-overs captain after succeeding Morgan, who retired from international cricket earlier this year.
This wealth of leadership experience will certainly benefit Duminy, as well as the newly-appointed Royals captain David Miller.
“I think the fortunate thing in terms of our picks is the leadership quality. For someone like David, in most ways is still gaining traction in terms of his exposure to captaincy,” Duminy told reporters.
“I think if we can surround him with good leaders in the camp, that will only bode him well for his leadership qualities going forward.”
Miller’s leadership experience is certainly growing with the powerful left-hander leading the Proteas to a first-ever T20I series victory over Buttler’s England on the last tour of the United Kingdom, while he has also just returned from the Caribbean Premier League where he was in charge of the Barbados Royals.
Duminy is certainly pleased that the Royals are littered with “local flavour” in all-rounder Ferisco Adams and spin duo Imran Manack and Bjorn Fortuin, and that “the entire Robertson will come out to support us”, he is confident that internationals like Roy will also have an important role to play.
Roy, in particular, has not had the best period of late, with the dynamic opener being dropped from England’s T20 World Cup squad to compete in Australia next month.
But Duminy believes that the 32-year-old will be ready to fire come January.
“Jason is obviously one of the most destructive batters upfront, yes he’s had a dip in form, but class is permanent. We still view him as someone to find that form in the next few months and be destructive for us,” he said.