Rickelton returns, but keeps his eagerness quiet

Ryan Rickelton returns. It sounds like the title of a feelgood movie, awkward alliteration and all. How good did he feel to be back? Oddly, Rickelton's eagerness wasn't obvious when he spoke to reporters in Cape Town on Monday.

"Yeah, it's always good to be back, I guess," he said as he stood in a hotel corridor. "I trained for an hour today, so I don't really have a sense of it yet. But I think when the games and the meetings happen, I'll have a nice sense of what the team's about. I'm looking forward to the group coming together."

Despite scoring a 63-ball 113 for Mumbai Indians Cape Town against Durban's Super Giants at Newlands eight days before CSA prematurely announced the T20 World Cup squad on January 2 - the suits had until January 31 to release the names - Rickelton was not selected.

The folly of naming the squad so early was made plain eight days later when Rickelton roared to 113 not out off 60 against Joburg Super Kings at the Wanderers.

Did he have a point to prove?

"Not really. I just wanted to try and find my groove and get some scores. It's a tournament that brings out the best in me, so I'm not here to prove anything. I'm just going to try to get on the bus and stay on the bus, and make sure that I'm doing myself proud and representing myself in scoring runs.

"I love batting. I love cricket. I love T20 cricket. I wasn't trying to prove a point. I was just trying to make sure that I got back to my best."

Even so, Rickelton was in that hotel corridor wearing a South Africa shirt - he, Aiden Markram and Kwena Maphaka had been wheeled out to lend gloss to CSA's announcement of a new sponsor - not because he had banged down the door. Rather, the selectors resorted to him because Tony de Zorzi wouldn't have recovered from a hamstring injury in time to play in the T20I series against West Indies that starts in Paarl on Tuesday. Rickelton replaced De Zorzi for that assignment as well as for the World Cup.

Tristan Stubbs, like Rickelton an original omittee, snuck into the World Cup squad in similar fashion after Donovan Ferreira - who had been included - fractured a shoulder in the field playing for Joburg against Pretoria at the Wanderers on January 17.

Stubbs' summons came as no surprise to Rickelton: "I was at a braai at Stubbo's house and we saw Ferreira go down, and I said, 'Tristan, there's a call coming your way.'"

That said, Rickelton made his own belated emergency call-up sound like a rude awakening: "I was actually quite okay with [being left out]. Mentally I made peace with it. I planned a nice month with the Lions, and I recently moved houses. So the opportunity to be at home was quite exciting for me.

"It's been a mixed bag this week. I finished up [with Cape Town] last week in PE [Gqeberha], then I went on holiday [at the coast]. So getting a call saying, 'Your holiday's over, you're coming back ...'"

Not that he was trying to sound unenthusiastic: "It's always a massive honour to go to the World Cup and represent South Africa. There's no joking about or hiding that. It's really exciting for me."

The tournament won't be Rickelton's first World Cup. He was in the squad that went all the way to the final of the T20 version in Nassau County and the Caribbean in 2024 - when they lost the final against India by a scant seven runs.

"That was a killer team we had in the final, and we should have won. It was extremely disappointing [to lose], but the opportunity to be there was important."

Rickelton was indeed there, but he didn't play a single match in the tournament. That is unlikely to be his fate this time - he seems set to bat at No. 3 behind Markram and Quinton de Kock.

South Africa will play their group matches in Ahmedabad and Delhi, which might not be Rickelton's choice. He hasn't played an international of any sort at those grounds, but he averages 17.33 across the formats in India.

He scored 71 in his first innings in Pakistan in the Lahore Test in October last year, but in seven other Test innings in the country and in India he didn't get past 45. His Asian adventure ended in December with a pair of ducks in ODIs in Ranchi and Visakhapatnam. How might he reverse that trend?

"I'll leverage my experience in the IPL and try to use that to my betterment," Rickelton said, a reference to the 388 runs he scored at a strike rate of 150.97 for Mumbai in last year's tournament.

It's a memory Rickelton will hold high as he goes back to India, and that's not all he is looking forward to: "At ICC events, everything ramps up. Especially in India, where cricket is a religion. The intensity at which the game is played goes through the roof.

"Everyone gets up for it, no matter what physical or mental state you're in. Every country gets up for it, and every game is a big game. Hopefully we can progress to the Super Eights, where each game gets more difficult and more important.

"The intensity will be there, the attitude will be up there, the commitment from the group will really be good. If I can match and rival that, then I give myself and the team the best chance."

If that happens, Ryan Rickelton's return will make a movie worth watching.