Piedt quits South Africa to pursue career in USA

In an era of Kolpak defections and players retiring to become travelling T20 mercenaries amid predictions of a dire future for cricket and cricketers in South Africa, Dane Piedt has found another way out. "To new beginnings," he tweeted on Friday (March 27) alongside emoticons of a US flag and clinking champagne glasses. His post included a photograph of him, a pen poised above a document, and a nearby celebratory measure of bubbly.

Piedt has signed a contract to play in the new Minor League T20 tournament in the US planned for the coming northern hemisphere summer. What the global coronavirus pandemic will do to those plans remains unknown, but the blueprint, announced in February, promises an event that will stretch across the country with teams in 22 cities. Piedt has a choice of basing himself in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles or Seattle, a decision he has yet to make - although the fact that some of his favourite basketball players are LA Lakers stars might be instrumental in settling on where he establishes his new home.

At 30, he has called time on a Test career in which he took 26 wickets in nine matches, the most recent of them against India in