Johannesburg — No-one doubts that the Proteas have an attack capable of winning a World Cup.
In fact the men's national team’s bowling stocks right now should make South Africa one of the best teams across formats, but in the Test arena, the batting’s been inconsistent and in One-Day cricket, those bowlers haven’t played together often enough as a unit to aid automatic World Cup qualification.
It’s an attack built on aggression with only Keshav Maharaj, a defensive component — everyone else is hunting wickets. Importantly, the selectors know what they have at their disposal, and crucially how to utilise those tools.
Victor Mpitsang said at the squad announcement in September, that factors like conditions and match-ups would determine the starting teams for each game, and in South Africa’s three Group matches that strategy has been apparent.
When it rained in Hobart, they chose a seam dominant attack, in Sydney against Bangladesh, Tabraiz Shamsi started and in Perth on Sunday, Lungi Ngidi got his starting place back.
Although there were some critics — most notably Imran Tahir — of the decision to omit Shamsi against Zimbabwe, the wet conditions were always going to count against the left-arm wrist spinner, who would have found it difficult to grip and control the ball in that match.
In Sydney however, where the pace of the pitch is slower and the ball does grip, Shamsi was going to be a much greater threat, which was the case as he claimed three wickets.
The selectors didn’t let that success impact on their decision making for Perth however. There the pace and bounce, lent itself to bringing in the extra quick and in fact one could argue, they should have gone all pace, and picked Marco Jansen for Maharaj.
It didn’t matter in the end because of how brilliantly all four seam bowlers performed. Ngidi was rightly lorded for his 4/29 — Rohit Sharma, KL Rahul, Virat Kohli and Hardik Pandya is a pretty decent quartet to dismiss — but Wayne Parnell also produced a stellar performance.
The veteran all-rounder’s 3/15 which included 16 dots, was a display of the highest quality. “It was about hitting good areas," he said afterwards. "Sometimes you can get carried away with bowling short. Personally, it was just trying to hit the top of the stumps and keep things simple."
While he did that, Anrich Nortje was bowling missiles and Kagiso Rabada, added further control, with Ngidi saying that he showed the rest of the attack the way against India.
As important as Rabada's bowling were the catches he took to dismiss Kohli and Pandya. Fielding is a critical part of the South African game-plan. They have an aggressive group led by swift ground work done by David Miller, Temba Bavuma and Tristan Stubbs, while the catching has been largely proficient — South Africa has dropped just three catches in the tournament, and Rabada’s miss of Rohit on Sunday really shouldn’t count.
Justin Ontong, the Proteas fielding coach, has relentlessly driven and structured the fielding plan, understanding how important it is to take the chances created by the bowlers and when it comes to ground fielding, providing support by creating pressure through speed and accurate throwing.
South Africa head back to Sydney for Thursday’s clash with Pakistan, where a win would secure a semi-final spot. Again, expect Mpitsang and Co. to continue with the ‘horses for courses’ approach and a likely return for Shamsi who has a better record against Pakistan than India.
IOL Sport