Ryan Rickelton is refusing to go quietly. On Boxing Day, eight days before he was left out of South Africa's T20 World Cup squad, he scored 113 off 63 for MI Cape Town against Durban's Super Giants at Newlands. On Saturday, eight days after his omission, he scored 113 not out off 60 against Joburg Super Giants at the Wanderers. That made Rickelton the only player to hammer two centuries in the SA20.

You make two tons in 16 days and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in disappointment.

Except that Rickelton is no longer gloomy about his World Cup fate. At least, that's what he told a press conference after Saturday's game.

"I'm over it already," Rickelton said. "I'm here to play my cricket, here to win games for this team. After this I'll go back to the Lions to win the four-day competition. So I'm pretty chilled with it. I just want to find my rhythm with my batting and win games for this team. That's the most important thing for me right now."

Rickelton went into the SA20 on the back of a pair of ducks in ODIs against India in Ranchi and Visakhapatnam. In his last 20 innings before the tournament, regardless of level or format, he reached 50 just once. On South Africa's tour to India in November and December, he scored 104 runs in six innings for an average of 17.33.

Clearly, Rickelton has turned a corner. Maybe that was the pivot he made to walk down the aisle after boarding the flight home.

"In India, a couple of months ago, I didn't know if I was coming or going. I wasn't sure just what I was trying to do. It's such a big mental game and trying to work my own game around that is the most difficult thing. I felt in India I was batting quite nicely. I just didn't have any return for it.

"It's the simple things in life. You come back home, experience your family and friends around you, and get to enjoy South Africa and being home. It can change your mental state."

A different dressing room does something similar, Rickelton said.

"When you jump from team to team, it gives you a new opportunity, a new perspective. And I've had that when I came to this [Cape Town] team. It's probably the team that gets the best out of me, frees me up in the way I want to play, and it takes me to the level I want to operate at 90% of the time. So you try and work through it. I enjoy playing for this team. I enjoy the group of players we've got, the coaches."

Whether or not Rickelton meant that as a dig at the South Africa set-up, and in particular at Shukri Conrad and his support staff, it will be seen that way. Conrad is one of the selectors - the other is Patrick Moroney - who didn't pick him for the World Cup.

Rickelton's century on Saturday came laden with context. He was born, raised and schooled in Johannesburg, and the Wanderers is his home ground. But after his hundred at Newlands, he said, "I'm just happier in Cape Town, honestly." On Saturday, he said, "I enjoy the life we have in Cape Town. What's not to love?"

Indeed. Newlands was the scene of Rickelton's 259 against Pakistan in a Test last January. He has had five first-class innings there, and has come away with at least a century in three of them. In 23 T20 innings in Cape Town, he has scored 900 runs - 167 more than in his 22 innings in the format at the Wanderers.

But when he hoisted a full, legside delivery from Nandre Burger over backward square leg for six to achieve three figures on Saturday, Rickelton removed his helmet, thudded the toe of his bat into the Wanderers pitch on which he grew up as a cricketer - reclaiming it as his own, you might say - thumped his helmet into the Cape Town badge on his chest, raised his arms to the crowd and drank in his glory with a wide smile.

"It's always nice to do it at my real home ground," he told the host broadcaster after collecting the player-of-the-match award.

If Rickelton's reaction seems familiar it's because he borrowed it: "I saw KL Rahul do it in the IPL, probably when he was inbetween teams and just letting everyone know that he's there. I don't know why that was at the top of my mind, but it just came out the way it did. I thought about it going into the game or maybe these last couple of weeks, so it probably was an emotional outburst. I remember KL's celebration quite vividly."

Bengaluru-born Rahul performed the original at the Chinnaswamy after launching a legside full toss from Yash Dayal into the stands beyond fine leg to seal victory for Delhi Capitals over Royal Challengers Bangalore in April last year. Rahul's unbeaten 93 off 53 that night was scored in the shadow of his axing from India's T20I squad. Rickelton knows how he felt.

Cape Town and Johannesburg are 1,265 kilometres apart at opposite ends of the country. They are also widely and wildly different in the South African imagination. Joburg is where the money is. Cape Town is where the beauty is. Joburgers don't like Capetonians, who say that's because they're jealous. You live in Joburg to get rich. Then you move to Cape Town.

Like Rickelton, Quinton de Kock and Tony de Zorzi are from Joburg, although De Zorzi has played out of Cape Town since November 2020. De Kock and De Zorzi have been listed as reasons why Rickelton isn't in the World Cup squad.

In 17 innings since he rescinded his international retirement in a T20I against Namibia in October, De Kock has scored two centuries to go with six 50s ranging from 53 to 90. Reasons to pick him are plentiful. But it's a difficult argument to make for De Zorzi, who hasn't played at all since December 3 because of a hamstring injury.

It's a tale of two cities and three cricketers, and it has a few SA20 chapters to go before we get to the World Cup. On current evidence, those pages will turn themselves.