By Mark Gleeson
CAPE TOWN (Reuters) – With a battery of quick bowling backed up by some formidable batters, South Africa have the opportunity to finally break their World Cup duck at the Twenty20 tournament in Australia.
South Africa have a history of failing to deliver at World Cups, progressing no further than the semi-final stage at both the 50-overs event and the T20 version.
In Australia they will hope the potentially destructive batting of Quinton de Kock and David Miller can deliver consistently, while Rilee Rossouw has made a positive return to the team and 22-year-old Tristan Stubbs has emerged as a top prospect.
But it is their highly regarded bowling attack which offers them a real chance of success.
Marco Jansen has been added to a squad that already includes Indian Premier League regulars Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi, taking the place of the injured Dwaine Pretorius.
“Australia will suit our fast bowlers,” said coach Mark Boucher. “We have got some good pace, some good bounce in our attack, so we need to keep the aggression there.”
Spinners Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi have proven an excellent foil and are ranked among the top 10 T20 bowlers by the International Cricket Council.
While there is plenty of cause for optimism, South Africa go into the tournament with their captain Temba Bavuma out of form.
His lowly strike rate in T20 cricket and failure with the bat in both T20 and One Day Internationals in the warm-up series in India in recent weeks has put question marks over his place in the team.
The 32-year-old also suffered the embarrassment of being overlooked in the auction for the new South African T20 league, which gets underway in January, with none of the six franchises opting to sign him.
Boucher, who is standing down as coach after the tournament, said Bavuma had to find form before the World Cup.
“We’ll try to get him back up and running again and get him into the nets and hopefully give him a knock or two before the World Cup starts and see where he is at,” he added.
“He is the captain and we treat him like that.”
(Reporting by Mark Gleeson; Editing by Peter Rutherford)
