The mother of all choices for Daniel Lategan

We’ve all been there. Standing in front of a menu of options, paralysed by the world of choice in front of us. 

Do I want the chicken in black bean sauce? Or the beef and broccoli? Prawn crackers would be nice, but now I think about it, would I rather play Test cricket for England, or South Africa? 

“That’s a tough one,” answers Worcestershire teenager Daniel Lategan, the world of cricket at his feet. “Obviously growing up in South Africa, you watch the Proteas growing up and you want to be that. But then you come here, and you play against some of the guys who have played for England and you seem like you’re going down that path. So that also seems like an amazing opportunity. I don’t really have an answer for you.”

Born and raised in Cape Town, Lategan moved to England in 2022 to finish his education, and has since had Cricket South Africa (CSA) and the ECB jostling for position on who will land the talented teenager. 

Before Lategan left for the UK, CSA had put him on the fast-track to be involved with South Africa U19s, and now he’s in the UK, the ECB are fiddling with their player eligibility rules in a way that a player like Lategan could benefit. In short, the change would mean Lategan could play domestic, or more to the point, franchise, cricket in South Africa as a local, and not have to wait another three years before being eligible to play for England. It’s not sexy, but sometimes true love is found in administration.

Few 19-year-olds in the country will be as familiar with overseas and visa regulations as Lategan. For Worcestershire, he is a vanishingly rare example of a player who made their professional debut as an overseas player. With counties allowed only two overseas spots per XI, the role is normally reserved for a star signing, not a 19-year-old making their first waves in the game. Similarly, Lategan was initially in the country on a student visa which would have prevented him from playing professional cricket, so his mother, who has British roots, moved over from South Africa so Lategan could switch to an ancestral visa and pursue a professional career. The pair now live together in Worcestershire, his mother works as a teaching assistant, and both have to abide by the rule of spending 210 days a year in the UK, with the rest of their family on the other side of the world. 

“My mum’s done, a lovely, lovely thing for me,” Lategan explains. “And basically put her life on pause to come here so that I can qualify. And hopefully once I get indefinite leave to remain and that all gets confirmed she can go back home to the family and my dad. Because, you know, obviously it isn’t easy for them being apart.”

A cursory look at Lategan’s early career statistics wouldn’t necessarily reflect a player destined for the big time. An average in the mid-30s from seven first-class matches, with two half-centuries. But sometimes the best analyses of a player are the simplest. Your friend who doesn’t like cricket, would like watching Lategan bat. He hits the ball incredibly hard. Not in a brutish manner of the modern day white-ball slogger, but an elegant one. With hands faster than John Wayne’s, he also benefits from the left-hander’s tax of coming across more stylishly just from being the “wrong” way around. And given the number of written rules Lategan is having to navigate to get a game, there feels at least a little justice in his benefitting from some of the unwritten ones too.

The rate of Lategan’s progress has been staggering, a fact he is well aware of himself. A year ago, when he was yet to make his professional debut, the wish to kill some time around net sessions led to his working the bar at New Road on matchdays. Pulling pints for the punters who now pay to watch him rather than buy a beer from him. 

“It was a funny time,” Lategan says with a smile. “Because I’d obviously trained a lot with the squad, so they’d come over for a chat which was nice. I was just trying to get a bit of extra money and keep busy - and ended up getting paid to watch cricket.”

While decision time for Lategan is yet to arrive, it continues to tick closer. He was an unused player for MI Cape Town in the SA20 at the end of last year, and had he made an appearance, his England qualification clock would have reset back to three years. If he is selected again for the upcoming season, and the ECB regulations haven’t changed, that’s when push will start becoming shove for an international decision. 

“I’m trying not really to think about it much, to be honest, at the moment,” he says. “I’m just trying to enjoy my cricket, trying to keep performing for Worcestershire…and keep all my doors open.”

A Test cap remains the dream for Daniel Lategan, but when that comes is not in his control. In the meantime, however, it is for the rest of us and the patrons of Worcestershire CCC to sit back and enjoy, with prawn crackers in hand.