South Africa vs England 2015-16: Failure of key batsmen in the series hold good heading into ICC World T20 2016
South Africa vs England 2015-16: Failure of key batsmen in the series hold good heading into ICC World T20 2016
After a close contest of five-match ODI series between South Africa and England, which the hosts’ emphatically won 3-2 at Cape Town, it’s time for another round of fast paced cricket. Both the teams again meet each other in two-match Twenty20 International (T20I) series from February 19 at Cape Town. The recently concluded ODI series gave us a lot of positives to look into in terms of both bat and ball. A total of 2,386 runs were stashed Alex Hales (383), Joe Root (351) and Quinton de Kock (326) runs contributing around fifty percent of the total runs made. Vishal Mehra talks about why failure of key batsmen in the series is a add-on positive going to the ICC World T20 2016 in India. LIVE CRICKET SCORECARD: South Africa vs England, 5th ODI match at Cape Town
Twenty20 is a batsmen game no doubt by in-order to even bat well one must be fairly decent to connect the ball. Given the recent run of form of batsmen around the world it can be said that few of the bigger and grandeur names of the sports will dazzle us in the tournament while many of the batsmen will disappoint not badly but fail miserably. The only batsman going into the ICC World T20, who will feel safe are the non-performing ones, which to our liking were plenty in this ODI series from both sides England and South Africa. From batting knights, kings and game-changers everyone failed not once twice but manner times. Lets leave the generic ones aside who were out-standing like Hales, Root and de Kock.
Firstly lets talk about the hosts’, who are heavily relied on the explosive trio of AB de Villiers, Faf Du Plessis and Hashim Amla to get their team off or finish them for impressive start/ending. All three added 582 runs together for the teams cause, not bad right but cancel out the 101* of De Villiers (fifth ODI) and 127 of Amla (third ODI), what remains is just 354 runs, two runs shy of Root’s tally. All these player heading into the World Cup will surely go back into the nets and make sure they don’t repeat the same mistakes, for example De Villiers in the series has got out to both a spinner and a medium pace bowler, the first instance he got out in a bid to clear Moeen Ali of the park only to have beaten by Ben Stokes who took a absolute beauty of a catch. Second time he got out was caught by Chris Jordan on leg-side, off Ben Stokes. This clearly shows that his ability to keep patience during an innings is currently inappropriate as it was a year ago during the ICC World Cup 2015, other team can easily take advantage of this on smaller ground were a flighted delivery or slower delivery can easily be misjudged for a easy whack. AB de Villiers: You live for those pressure moments
South Africa’s T20 skipper for the World T20 Du Plessis has been off late going through a bad patch, more so having a clear syndrome of getting out to in swinging deliveries, getting bowled as many two consecutive times and edging almost similar deliveries.
England Skipper and mainstay in their middle order/ late middle order batting enigma Eoin Morgan is going through torrid times with the bats, getting mostly dismissed fairly early on, all though he has been a victim of his premeditation. Be it spinner’s or pace-bowlers Morgan has hardly been steady in the crease, it is perfectly fine to shuffle and disturb the psych of opponent by not the extend of losing one’s balance and composure. Jos Buttler, who started off with a century just withered away after that, he became his own downfall getting out on two ducks in his last three innings. Buttler wanted to hit the bowler out the park first ball in every innings he batted since the hundred, giving the bowlers an easy time to take him out. For Buttler it is a must to understand not every one is or can be ‘Bradmanish’ (even the great man got out for a duck in his final Test innings).
South Africa, will be more than happy to see their batsmen perform in the upcoming T20 series against England, but actuality wouldn’t mind saving the best for their form for the T20 World Cup, given how the main batsmen have failed it provides them with much needed insights and oodles of material to work and improve upon. Not saying good performances wouldn’t have but mistakes and faults can be more haunting and unnerving than anything else, and is the least of any batsmen priority. England on the other hand have a very fresh and energetic pool of batsmen, who needs to calm down, understand how to be more passive while playing and exert the proper amount of tension required to pull the match through in their teams.
Successes won’t teach them their drawback’s quickly but a pinch of failure or a spoonful of setback will make not only accept difficulties but also acknowledge its bearing on one’s career.