Cape Town — The Proteas have only faced their African neighbours Zimbabwe once at the T20 World Cup. It was a lopsided 10-wicket victory for AB de Villiers’ men in the Sri Lankan jungle village of Hambantota back in 2012.
Monday’s clash in Hobart at 10am is expected to be a much closer affair. Here, Zaahier Adams highlights five things the Proteas need to do to get their T20 World Cup campaign up and running.
Stop Sikandar Raza
The veteran all-rounder is the heartbeat of the Zimbabwean team. He plays with his heart on his sleeve and for all the people back home of his adopted nation.
He is a match-winner and thrives on carrying his team on his back, as his 136 runs (average 45, strike rate 172) and five wickets in the qualifying stages attest. Equally, he loves the big stage and would like nothing more than to put one over Zimbabwe’s big southern African brother.
Beware of complacency
Zimbabwe have a history of upsetting the Proteas at a World Cup. Remember Neil Johnson and his motley crew at the one-day international tournament in 1999.
The class of 2022 will be no pushovers either. This T20 World Cup has already provided its fair share of surprise results and the Proteas will be keen not to add their name to the list.
Play the conditions
The Proteas are eager to play two spinners in T20 cricket, especially as they have two potential match-winners in Tabraiz Shamsi and Keshav Maharaj.
However, Zimbabwe has shown in their previous matches at the Bellerive Oval what their seam attack consisting of Blessing Muzarabani, Luke Jongwe, Richard Ngarava and Tendai Chatara can do in helpful conditions.
Imagine what havoc the likes of Kagiso Rabada, Anrich Nortje, Lungi Ngidi, Wayne Parnell and Marco Jansen can achieve?
Beware of the net run-rate
The first priority is, of course, to win the game. But hopefully the Proteas would have taken cognisance of last year in the UAE, when they missed out on a semi-final place due to a pedestrian chase against Bangladesh that affected their run-rate.
“You want to try to obviously perform as well as you can,” captain Temba Bavuma said, “but make sure that you keep a pulse on that net run-rate.
“If there's an opportunity to really win well, make sure that we do so. We don't want to kind of ease ourselves into the tournament. There really is no time to do that.”
Bavuma to find some form
The draw has worked out kindly for the Proteas, and particularly Bavuma, with the skipper having potentially the perfect opening game to rediscover his touch.
Hopefully, hitting a few in the middle can get Bavuma into some form ahead of sterner challenges that lay ahead.
IOL Sport