Vernon Philander, who retired in January 2020, isn’t happy with the officials of Cricket South Africa as he reveals that the terms of his contract weren’t upheld.
He hung up his boots with 224 wickets at an average of 22.32 from 64 Test matches. In ODI cricket, he played 30 games and picked up 41 wickets. He played only seven T20Is in his career and ended up with four scalps.
However, more than two years after his retirement, there is a big development. The Bellville-born bowler has taken a legal action against the officials of CSA. There seems to be a dispute over the contract he held during his playing days.
Philander said that the board had upgraded his contract due to the fear of Kolpak deals. The seam-bowler admitted that he was quite happy with the renewed contract and was happy to continue playing.
“It was during these meetings that it was discussed that my contract would be upgraded if I remained eligible for the Proteas. After the meetings I immediately called [Mickey] Arthur and told him I was happy with the proposal and that I would continue playing for the Proteas in terms of the new agreements,”
Philander was quoted saying to IOL Sport in an exclusive interview.
However, it has come to light that CSA paid the new amount only for one year and didn’t continue with the same amount in the following year. He was given various reasons for the non-obligation of the contract by the association like not playing franchise cricket, ranking system among others.
“I was paid the new amount for the next season, but not the following year. I was told that due to me not playing franchise cricket they could not pay me what was previously agreed upon. This has no bearing on my national contract. They presented their ‘ranking system’ which made no sense as I had actually gone up in the ICC Test rankings,”
ру added.
After retiring, Philander signed a two-year contract with Somerset but that was later cancelled. He was a part of Pakistan’s coaching setup for the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021 as a bowling consultant.
