Kingstown (St. Vincent), June 14 South Africa’s fast-bowling spearhead Kagiso Rabada said he expects to see competitive scores in the Super Eight stage of the Men’s T20 World Cup, citing that pitches in the West Indian are more traditional as compared to the ones dished out in the USA.
South Africa played three Group D matches at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York, where drop-in pitches made it challenging for the batters to post big totals. The Proteas will begin their West Indies leg of the competition through its last Group D game against Nepal at the Arnos Vale Ground on Saturday.
“I do expect that conditions are going to level up. Because you had the drop-in pitches in the USA, you never really know how they're going to play. And we had an idea of how a full idea of how they play.”
“And now (in West Indies) you've actually got squares that have been there for years, here in these venues. And you'll probably see more competitive scores. And you look at the game between Australia and England, where 200 played 150,” said Rabada to reporters.
He also felt the pitches in West Indies would provide for a greater balance between bat and ball. “If you do bat well in these conditions, you can still reach 200. But you want to get a game and find pitches where you have enough in it for the bowlers and enough in it for the batters because that's essentially what a cricket game is. As a bowler, I must say, I have enjoyed it 100% (of bowling so far in the tournament). But conditions will probably level out now.”
Rabada further believes South Africa would decide on their batting approach based on the wickets they play on in the West Indies. “Otherwise, you might as well just call it batting or you might as well call it bowling. But, the guys, you can't really judge their form on wickets that we've just played on. As much as it's not an excuse, but common sense would prevail.”
“And you would say that you can't really blame the batters. But in saying that, no one's got any demons. Everyone's moving forward. We play the conditions as we see them. And on our day, we know the sky's a limit in terms of batting.”
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