Players and officials at Stroud Cricket Club can be forgiven if they have divided loyalties ahead of the final Test between South Africa and England.

That’s because there’s every chance that Keegan Petersen, who played for the Gloucestershire club last season, will make his Test debut for South Africa at the Wanderers Stadium on Friday.

There is a growing expectation that the 26-year-old will get the call to arms after South Africa’s timid batting in Port Elizabeth in the Test just ended, a game which England won by an innings to give them a 2-1 lead in the four-match series.

Petersen, who was drafted into the South African squad just before Christmas after an injury to Aiden Markram, spent last summer playing for Stroud in the Premier Two Gloucestershire/Wiltshire Division of the West of England Cricket League during which time he made a big impression on Louis Gegg who took over as captain of the club in the latter stages of the campaign.

And having seen him play at close quarters Gegg is convinced that his mate – he is in regular contact with Petersen – has what it takes to thrive at the highest level of the game.

“He’s very relaxed, he doesn’t get fazed by much,” said Gegg. “He’s quite a classy batsman, he doesn’t over attack.”

Petersen got a 100 playing for South Africa A in one of the warm-up games at the start of England’s tour so he is not unknown to the tourists but batting against the likes of Mark Wood, Ben Stokes, Stuart Broad and possibly Jofra Archer on what is expected to be a pacey and bouncy wicket in Johannesburg is a whole new ball game.

And with Zubayr Hamza almost certain to be axed there’s every chance that Petersen will be batting at three should he get the nod.

But again Gegg has no worries about his mate.

“He plays for Knights at Bloemfontein which is a quick wicket,” Gegg added. “He’s a decent player of quick bowling. He plays very straight but also cuts well.

“He stands really still at the crease, he doesn’t have a trigger movement.”

He also likes to hook and it’s a batting style that has certainly served him very well up to now.

He has played 89 first class matches and scored more than 5,500 runs at a shade over 40 with 15 centuries and 24 50s.

He also scored upwards of 660 runs in 11 matches for Stroud last summer at an average of more than 66, hitting three hundreds and two half-centuries.

And it wasn’t just his performances on the pitch that impressed Gegg.

“He’s very sociable, very easy going,” added Gegg. “He did some coaching as well, he’s a nice lad.”

He is signed up to return for a second summer with Stroud this year – “He’s due to return on 30th April,” said Gegg – but that will change if he makes his Test debut at the end of this week.

That’s because the rules state that someone who has played international cricket is not eligible to play club cricket in this country for a certain length of time.

“If he plays against England we’ll have to find someone else,” admitted Gegg.

And while that is not what Gegg wants, he also admits that he’d far rather see his friend, who lived with him at his Cashes Green home for part of last summer, win his first Test cap.