South Africa‘s T20I team, under the leadership of stand-in captain Rassie van der Dussen, suffered a humiliating 3-0 series defeat at the hands of the West Indies. This series marked the Proteas’ second consecutive T20I series loss to the West Indies and their fourth unsuccessful series out of four under white-ball coach Rob Walter.
Reflecting on the series, van der Dussen acknowledged that the South African team was “taught a lesson in how to play in Caribbean conditions.” Despite being the second-highest run-scorer in T20 cricket in 2024, van der Dussen was not included in South Africa’s T20 World Cup squad and was filling in for regular captain Aiden Markram. He admitted that the team repeatedly made the same mistakes and highlighted the need for a braver approach in their batting strategy, particularly during the powerplay.
“From a batting front, we can maybe be just a bit braver,” van der Dussen said. “We saw the way that the West Indies play, especially in the powerplay. They really take it on. When the ball’s new, it’s easier to score. It gets tough towards the back end when the ball gets soft.”
In the first two games, West Indies put up impressive powerplay scores of 64 for 1 and 51 for 1, respectively, and chased 164 in the final game by racing to 83 without loss in the powerplay. In contrast, South Africa struggled, posting 46 for 3 and 85 for 2 while chasing, with their highest powerplay score being 45 for 2 when batting first. This disparity was largely due to the number of wickets lost by the South African top order, which included Reeza Hendricks and Quinton de Kock. Despite some individual success from Hendricks and de Kock, their partnership flourished only once, and Ryan Rickelton, batting at No. 3, struggled to make an impact.
Van der Dussen attributed some of these issues to the players’ exhaustion and their slow adaptation to the conditions, but he was critical of their repeated mistakes. “We just couldn’t adapt early enough. We had a long week in terms of layovers in Miami and so forth. We saw that in the first match, but you can’t keep making the same mistakes.”
The middle order, which van der Dussen was a part of, also failed to deliver, with van der Dussen being the only batter from positions No. 4 to 7 to score double figures in two games. However, the return of experienced players like Aiden Markram, Heinrich Klaasen, David Miller, and Tristan Stubbs for the T20 World Cup is expected to boost South Africa’s power-hitting capabilities. Yet, concerns remain as none of these players featured in the top-ten run-scorers list of IPL 2024 and showed inconsistent performances during the tournament.
“The guys are very experienced. Many of them have played CPL a few times,” van der Dussen said. “We don’t know what conditions we’re going to get in the USA but the middle order is made up of very experienced, world-class players.”
On the bowling front, South Africa faced significant challenges as the West Indies outperformed them. Van der Dussen highlighted the underwhelming performances of Anrich Nortje, who went wicketless in the two matches he played and continued to leak runs, echoing his struggles in the IPL. Additionally, the fitness of Ottneil Baartman is a concern, as he picked up a lower limb strain and missed the last two games after bowling his full quota in the first match. With Kagiso Rabada recovering from a soft tissue infection and Tabraiz Shamsi dealing with a lower limb injury, the South African bowling attack was weakened.
Despite the challenges, van der Dussen found some positives in the performances of spinner Bjorn Fortuin and newcomer legspinner Nqaba Peter, who showed promise and is seen as a future prospect for South Africa.
South Africa has one more opportunity to fine-tune their game with a warm-up match in Florida before their T20 World Cup campaign begins against Sri Lanka in a week’s time.
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