Ahmedabad: Some rivalries border on the extreme, like India-Pakistan, while friendlier faceoffs exist too, such as India-South Africa. Regardless of the artificial hype generated by the promos, the inter-squad camaraderie between the two teams remains unaffected.
You could see it in the play-and-games between captains Suryakumar Yadav and Aiden Markram during pre-tournament promotions. Or the Hardik Pandya-David Miller bond. The closing moments of the 2024 T20 World Cup were defined by Hardik’s finest hour and the most painful one for Miller. Having won matches for Gujarat Titans with Hardik as skipper, their bond remains firmly intact.
Surya’s boundary line stunner at Barbados, the euphoria of a T20 title win after 17 years don’t wither away so easily for the Indian cricket fan. For South Africa, as they prepare for a World Cup rematch on Sunday, they would love to erase any remains of that loss from the memory bank.
“We just forgot about it,” Quinton de Kock said on Saturday. “That’s pretty much it. We’ve never really spoken about it from there.”
The two teams were at the Narendra Modi Stadium exactly two months ago. Although it was a bilateral series, runs came quickly then. That’s when Sanju Samson was still middling the ball. Abhishek Sharma was hitting the leather off it. And Tilak Varma slicing it to every quarter of the ground.
All of that has changed. Samson is out of the playing 11, Abhishek can’t buy a run and Varma has found the going rather tough against slow bowlers.
“I worry for the people who are worried about Abhishek’s form,” Surya told reporters. “I think about those teams who are going to play against him, that he has not yet scored a run. When he scores, you have seen what happens.”
“It happens, it’s a team sport,” he added. “The team requires that the boy play according to his identity. If it happens, then it’s fine. If it doesn’t, then we are there to cover. Last year, he covered for us (batters).”
There are other concerns around Indian batting. Have they been handcuffed by spin? The Indian captain says it’s self-exercised caution.
“The day you don’t get a start, you have to think about what the team needs. If the No. 3 or 4 player gets out early, all the pressure comes on the lower order, whose job is actually to give firepower to the team and finish the game.”
Faced with stickier pitches, this World Cup has seen a marked change in Indian batting strategy where they have settled for a low-risk game in the middle overs and banked on their finishers and bowlers to see them through. If the hybrid soil pitch saved for this match is more encouraging for stroke play, that could free up the home batters.
While India sticks to its guns with its all-left top three – Abhishek, Ishan Kishan and Varma—a spate of left-handers in the South African batting lineup—Quinton de Kock, Ryan Rickleton, Miller and Marco Jansen—could conversely tempt them to play all-rounder Washington Sundar ahead of Axar Patel as the only spinner with a favourable match up, not counting Varun Chakravarthy’s googlies. Dropping vice-captain Axar for a big game though would be a big call, given his superior spin-hitting prowess with the bat.
South Africa has played three of its four league matches in Ahmedabad and even survived a titanic clash with Afghanistan won over two Super Overs. A five-match bilateral series leading up to the World Cup has meant the two teams know all there is to know about each other.
“I think that’s what’s going to make for quite a good game,” De Kock said. “And to be honest, the teams haven’t really changed much. So I think it’s more about who deals with the pressure better and wins the small moments in the game.”
De Kock after returning from his international exile has been at the top of his powers. His battle with Arshdeep Singh and Jasprit Bumrah in the powerplay, with usually some assistance at the start in Ahmedabad could be a key battle to watch. In what is expected to be a highly tactical battle, analysts of both teams are expected to work overtime to get every move right.
Match-ups or instincts? Varun Chakravarthy’s mystery spin or Keshav Maharaj’s finger spin? Feast or famine for Abhishek? There are plenty of underplots to this battle of heavyweights. As for Morne and Albie, the Morkel brothers; serving as assistant coaches of India and South Africa, they can’t wait for it to be over so that they can start talking again.
