Plenty of benefit for Proteas in upcoming T20 series
As the South Africa T20 side prepares for the upcoming T20
World Cup in Australia at the end of the year, their final preparations start
with a five-match T20 series against India starting this week.
Captain Temba Bavuma sees plenty of benefit from their upcoming series as the national T20 side gets together for the first time since they played in the T20 World Cup last year and just getting in good match practice is a crucial element of the tour.
“There is a lot of benefit in playing for us because we haven’t played T20 cricket together for a long time,” Bavuma said.
“Any type of competitive cricket will be good for us and we’ll be using these games to familiarize ourselves with how we go about playing our cricket.
“Also getting guys to understand their roles in the team and just being together as a team so there is still a lot for us to achieve and benefit from during this series.”
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Stubbs in the mix for the series and Bavuma hints that he’ll get a run at some
stage while they look to nail down their top order for the World Cup.
“We’ve got a couple of new faces in the T20 space so opportunities will be given to them to see what role they can play and what value they can add.
“Solidifying our batting order, more specifically at the top, is an important goal of this series but we really just want to familiarize ourselves with our game and how we go about doing things,” Bavuma added.
Despite the Indian side potentially leaving out a number of their high-profile players for the series Bavuma knows they will be a formidable outfit and knows that it will be a hard-fought series.
“We don’t see it as playing a B Side, we are playing the Indian T20 side,” he explained. “We’ll still be as motivated as ever and I think the competitiveness will still be there.
“The attitude and the mindset of the Indian side will still be that of playing hard and competitively and I think whether Rohit Sharma or Virat Kohli are there or not there’ll still be that fighting spirit will still be there.”
The five-match T20 series starts with the first match at the Feroz Shah Kotla Stadium in Delhi on 9 June.
Proteas T20 team v India
Temba Bavuma (C), Quinton de Kock (wk), Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Wayne Parnell, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tristan Stubbs, Rassie van der Dussen and Marco Jansen.
