Baartman, who made six appearances at the T20 World Cup during South Africa’s run to the final, was due to play for Hampshire in their final six group games. But his arrival was delayed due to unspecified “visa issues” and the club announced on Friday that, with their quarter-final hopes thin, his deal has been cancelled.

After two wins, three no-results and five defeats, Hampshire sit seventh in the nine-team South Group of the Blast heading into Friday night’s fixture against Gloucestershire at the Ageas Bowl. With the top four teams qualifying for the quarter-finals, they may need to win all four of their remaining fixtures to progress.

“We’ll have to do some maths to see if we can still qualify,” Adi Birrell, their coach, said after their most recent defeat to Sussex. “I can’t really think that two wins out of ten gives us a chance of getting through to the quarter-finals but we’ll have to have a look at it.

“We had three rained-off games, which has given us a few points, but we’re not really playing well enough to go through… we were a bit off in all departments [against Sussex], as we have been throughout the campaign. We haven’t really put in a good performance in all departments.”