South Africa have never got their hands on a global ICC title but there is a growing band of people who think that the T20 World Cup could be the one which breaks their duck. They are certainly going to be playing in conditions which suit them and have been an improving side since the last World Cup. If they handle the pressure of the knockout matches, should they get there, then they could well be leading dangers.
Profile
Captain: Temba Bavuma
Previous Best: Semi-final 2009 & 2014
Best Odds: 7/1 General
Key Players: David Miller & Kagiso Rabada
Group 2 Fixtures
Oct 24 vs Zimbabwe at Hobart
Oct 27 vs Bangladesh at Sydney
Oct 30 vs India at Perth
Nov 3 vs Pakistan at Sydney
Nov 6 vs Neitherlands at Adelaide
Squad
Temba Bavuma (c), Quinton de Kock, Heinrich Klaasen, Reeza Hendricks, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Wayne Parnell, Kagiso Rabada, Rillee Rossouw, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tristan Stubbs, Marco Jansen. Standby Players: Bjorn Fortuin, Andile Phehlukwayo, Lizaad Williams.
Team Guide
South Africa have been building nicely in the 20 over format of the game and it is clearly something they are going to take seriously in the foreseeable future as they have just put together their own franchise league to be able to compete with the other nations in the world. That will just give them more cricket in their own conditions though because most of their star names already play in most of the leagues around the world.
South Africa had a good summer when they beat England and Ireland away but more recently they were edged out in India. They have one or two issues to deal with ahead of this tournament and they need to be careful that they don’t end up costing them dearly. The good thing in terms of them going deep in this event is they look to be in much the weaker of the two groups and they only missed out on the semi-finals last year on net run rate.
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Betting
I think South Africa are another side who are going to rotate their bowlers around throughout the group stage of the tournament. Marco Jansen was a late replacement for Dwaine Pretorius but you could argue he should have been in the squad anyway and left armers are having plenty of success in this tournament but given that we don’t know the makeup of their starting attack and how many games everyone will play I’m happy to focus on the batting.
Initially it looks like Reeza Hendricks won’t get a game for South Africa to begin with in this tournament but that hasn’t been confirmed but even if he doesn’t then the form of Bavuma is going to have to pick up quickly else the calls for him to be replaced will grow ever louder. Hendricks’ last five T20I scores have been 57, 53, 70, 79 and 42. You just can’t leave a player with that record out for too long. He is 9/1 to be the top South Africa batter and I’ll pay to see if he can force his way in and then top score.
Tips
Back R.Hendricks Top South Africa Batter for a 1/10 stake at 10.00 with Betfair
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