Former South Africa star Vernon Philander has taken legal action against Cricket South Africa, alleging a breach of contract.
Philander claims that he was offered an "upgraded" new deal by the organisation in 2018 in a bid to prevent him from turning his back on South African cricket in order to sign a lucrative Kolpak deal with a team in the County Championship.
By that time several seamers had already quit South African cricket to join County sides, with Kyle Abbot making the move to Hampshire, Marchant de Lange signing with Glamorgan, Wayne Parnell joining Worcestershire and Morne Morkel retiring from international cricket to sign for Surrey.
Philander says CSA were "very concerned" about him leaving as well and that they were "aware that I had plenty of offers from a number of English counties".
CSA's former acting director of cricket Corrie van Zyl is then said to have flown to Sri Lanka while South Africa were touring the country to hold discussions with Philanderover his future.
"It was during these meetings that it was discussed that my contract would be upgraded if I remained eligible for the Proteas," Philander told IOL.
"After the meetings I immediately called 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."
However, Philander has accused CSA of only honouring that new contract for one year.
"I was paid the new amount for the next season, but not the following year," he added. "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."
