India will begin their Super 8 campaign of the ongoing T20 World Cup by facing South Africa at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad on Sunday, in a replay of the 2024 T20 World Cup final. Ahead of the match, former South African batsman Neil McKenzie spoke exclusively to The Indian Express on what to expect from the high-octane clash.
Excerpts:
If you had to pick one player from both sides, who would it be?
That’s a tough one. Both sides are littered with unbelievable players and guys that can take the game away from you. The obvious choice would be choosing one of the top three in a highly skilled, talented six-batter lineup that India and South Africa have. In that department, it’s not who gets the 60, the 70, the 80, but it’s going to be who plays the spinners in that middle stage. So, a guy like Suryakumar Yadav, how he comes in there, how he puts the South African bowlers under pressure, and a guy like Dewald Brevis is one of the best hitters of the ball, turning away from him in the last year or so.
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Both teams are filled with power. Do you think it’s going to be a high-scoring affair?
You can see in the IPL the bowlers are under the pump, which highlights your quality bowlers that get away and bowl really well; it highlights their skills. The bowling, in terms of South Africa, they’ve got their blueprint, where India has got a lot more variation at their disposal. And it’s just how they implement that variation against the different match-ups. So, I’m hoping for a high-scoring game, but I’m hoping that the scores are pretty tight.
SA played in Ahmedabad in the group stage. How do you think that will help them?
So, for one box, India will obviously have home ground advantage. South Africa will be thinking, well, we’ve been here for the last couple of weeks. We know the venue really well. So that might cancel out.
Where India is slightly ahead of South Africa is that they’ve got a lot more variation in the spin department. But I don’t see that as being huge. It’s obviously a huge positive because you have all the variations, but it’s how you deploy them.
SA won a double super over against Afghanistan. Do you think they are well-equipped to deal with crunch games?
It was a very bizarre cricket match where one team threw it, and one team gave it away or took it away and then threw it back to them. So it’s nice to get over the line. It’s like soccer. You have a few penalty shootouts or whatever it is. But these are two highly experienced sides (India and South Africa), and the rest of the sides in the competition are experienced sides. So I don’t think it gives them too much of an edge. But it is a really good momentum shifter for the South Africans to say, like in the big moments we’ve got through.
Will the lack of a frontline off-spinner hurt SA against India’s left-heavy line-up?
Markram is more than a useful off-spinner. Also, with the left-handers, you’ve got Lungi Ngidi who can bowl in the up front one or two, and then in the middle and the one at the back end. And his favourite ball is the slow ball into the wicket. So he is basically taking away from the left-handers as well. So they have got a lot of tools that they can use.
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How do you think power-packed SA will cope with Indian bowling?
As I said, India is littered with some unbelievable cricketers. The big thing about that is they’ve got, you talk about matchups in T20 games, and generally what happens is the left-handed batters come in, you bowl your off spinners. So India has got three or four off-spinners that they can choose from. When the right-handers come in, your lefties and your wrist spinners, they come on. So they’ve definitely got all the tools to get your matchup in favour of the bowling side. Then you’ve got Bumrah. We know he’s probably the best death bowler in the world, obviously. But a lot of these guys would have played Bumrah before.
Will the Proteas win the tournament?
South Africa is playing really, really good cricket. There are a few South Africans who are in good form, but they’re going to have to win some key moments and some clutch games. There are a lot of good sides out there. There are probably six sides in the Super 8 that can win this World Cup.
