South Africa are ranked third in the ICC ODI rankings yet, for the first time in their cricketing history, they aren’t one of the favourites in this year’s ICC Cricket World Cup.
The Proteas have just been steamrolled by hosts England at the Oval by 104 runs and will be looking to fight back against Mashrafe Mortaza’s Bangladesh at the Oval.
Last time they met at the World Cup was the 2011 World Cup at Dhaka. Bangladesh needed to win against Graeme Smith’s men in order to make their first ever knockout stage against either Pakistan or Sri Lanka.
On a surprisingly seam-friendly pitch, South Africa stormed their way to 8/284 after their 50 overs. The Bangla boys never seemed to look in the chase as they were embarrassingly bowled out for 78 in front of their home crowd, missing out on a maiden quarter-final spot to the West Indies on net run rate.
The makes their head-to-head record at the World Cup South Africa 2, Bangladesh 1.
The Tigers seem to be high on confidence nowadays in what is their best format currently in world cricket. In between this year’s World Cup and the last edition, they’ve made massive strides in the 50-over format, steamrolling any side they faced on their turf apart from England, where they lost 2-1 in a very competitive series.
Throw in winning a tri-series a few weeks ago in Ireland and the not so big name players starting to perform more consistently, and you see a side who’s more than capable of pulling off a few upsets.
Tamim Iqbal, Shakib Al Hasan and Mushfiqur Rahim are usually the big wickets in Bangladesh’s top four, but don’t count out opener Soumya Sarkar. Ever since Sarkar became the first Bengali to score a List A double ton in Bangladesh’s one day domestic tournament this year, the left hander has turned a corner from what seemed a countless number of low scores.
He seems more confident in his strokes and has scored three consecutive 50s in his last three ODIs. South Africa would remember him well, as he’s scored 213 runs in four matches against them at a strike rate of 109.79 – with two half centuries.
The key bowler for Bangladesh will be Mustafizur Rahman. He’s got some good memories against the Proteas, taking five wickets in three games at an average of 15.4 runs, 28.8 balls and an economy of 3.21. Although those performances were on dry wickets in Dhaka and Chittagong, the Fizz is a better bowler than the one trick pony he was four years ago and has more weapons in his arsenal to look out for.
South Africa will be reeling from that opening performance against the Poms. Bar Quinton De Kock, Rassie Van Der Dussen and veteran Imran Tahir, they looked out of sorts. There was no penetration from the all rounders when bowling in the middle overs and their middle order channelled their inner arsenal following the wicket of De Kock.
It’ll be up to their top three in Hashim Amla, De Kock and captain Faf Du Plessis to step up and provide a platform for their middle order batsmen to just tee off at the death rather than being exposed in the middle overs.
Kagiso Rabada is the main threat out of their star studded bowling attack to me. He’ll have fond memories of playing against Bangladesh after taking a hat trick in his ODI debut against them in his second over of ODI cricket. If he doesn’t fire with the new ball, Bangladesh will have won 40 per cent of the battle against the Proteas.
Faf Du Plessis did mention at the toss against England that speedster Dale Steyn won’t be 100 per cent fit until South Africa plays India on Wednesday and in such a long tournament, I find it highly unlikely to see them risk him for their clash on Sunday.
Both sides will be looking to register a win to boost their confidence for their upcoming games. Mashrafe Mortaza was in the Bangladesh side when they defeated the Proteas at the 2007 World Cup and will be looking to replicate that performance as captain now.
If the pitch is similar to the one that was used for the first match which was a little bit on the slower side, then Bangladesh have a decent chance of causing an upset. Nonetheless South Africa start as favourites and the onus is on them to deliver.
Predicted XIs
Bangladesh: Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim (wk), Liton Das/Mohammad Mithun, Mahmudullah, Mosaddek Hossain, Mohammad Saifuddin, Mashrafe Mortaza (captain), Rubel Hossain/Mehedi Hasan, Mustafizur Rahman
South Africa: Hashim Amla, Quinton De Kock (wk), Faf Du Plessis (captain), Rassie Van Der Dussen, JP Duminy, David Miller, Chris Morris, Andile Phehlukwayo, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi/Tabraiz Shamsi, Imran Tahir
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