Graeme Smith says South Africa would welcome back Kolpak players

Graeme Smith says South Africa would welcome back into the fold players who have been on Kolpak deals in England as they aim to boost their squad depth.

Kolpak registrations - which give sportsmen from countries with associate trade agreements with the European Union the same rights as EU workers - are set to be terminated at end of 2020 following the UK's exit from the EU.

Essex spinner Simon Harmer and Yorkshire seamer Duanne Olivier are some of the many South Africa-born players on such deals in county cricket, which prohibit them from playing internationally for the Proteas.

Former South Africa captain Smith, recently appointed as the side's permanent director of cricket, said: "With Kolpak coming to an end, I guess the willingness is always to have our best players in the system.

"It is up to the players to come back into the system and to make decisions on their careers.

"From our perspective, we want to encourage all our best players to play here domestically, and then give themselves the opportunity to be selected for the national side.

"We don't ever want to exclude players from being part of our system and we understand that the landscape of the world game is very different now to what it was.

"Open minds and how we look at these things is going to be key to how we keep our best players. How we keep them motivated and in our game."