While many would historically consider South Africa to be heavy favourites in their Champions Trophy opener against Afghanistan on Friday, that may not be the case in Karachi.
Despite their wealth of cricketing talent, South Africa have been battling in One-Day Internationals (ODIs) of late.
The only ODI series they’ve won in the last year came against minnows Ireland.
The other two losses came against Afghanistan and Pakistan. They also recently lost both matches in their Tri-Nation series against Pakistan and New Zealand which ended last week.
Group B or ‘The group of death’ also features England and Australia, and it will be difficult to predict which two teams advance to the semi-finals.
In Afghanistan though, SA will face a team which bats strongly in the middle overs.
The Asian outfit, however, tend to start slowly in their innings (much like the Proteas) and that’s where the SA bowlers can take advantage with their superior pace attack which will include Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and any combination of Lungi Ngidi, Wiaan Mulder and Corbin Bosch.
The key then for the Proteas against Afghanistan will be starting well with the ball.
In their warm-up game against Pakistan Shaheens last week, it was also interesting to see that eight different bowlers were used by the Proteas. That included all the usual suspects like the two spinners, the regular pace attack with the addition of Aiden Markram.
With the flat pitches expected in Pakistan and the UAE, it could take an army to restrict batting lineups.
However, if Afghanistan do manage to negotiate the first 20 overs of their innings safely it could be difficult for South Africa to restrict them.
It’s probably never been a more evenly-matched clash on paper between South Africa and Afghanistan, but just perhaps the one thing in the Proteas’ favour will be lowered expectations.
* The views expressed are not necessarily the views of IOL or Independent Media.
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