South Africa is entering the Super Eight stage with an all-win record. But after their win over Sri Lanka in the first game, the rest could have gone either way. It found itself at 12 for 4 chasing 104 against Netherlands, only scored 113 for 6 and won by four runs against Bangladesh, and scraped through by a solitary run against Nepal.
South Africa has lost 11 wickets and is averaging a mere 9.63 in the powerplay this World Cup - the third-lowest behind Uganda and Papua New Guinea. And none of its top-order batters have a strike rate of 100 in the first six overs.
Having said that, South Africa played three of its four games in New York, where batting conditions were far from ideal. And in hopefully better conditions in North Sound, they will hope the top order can finally flex their muscles.
“We feel like over the last couple of years. We’ve been playing good cricket. Had had a really good 50 over World Cup last year and took a lot of confidence from that. So, like you mentioned, you try to time your run perfectly. Obviously, things don’t work out perfectly, but if we can start putting complete games of cricket together moving forward, give ourselves a crack to get into semifinals and knockout cricket and then you kind of know you’re just one or two good games away from doing something really special. So, the guys are still really fizzed up about that idea and the thought of doing that and but also sort of understanding the fact that it’s three pretty big games for us to get into that position and have that opportunity”, said Aiden Markram during the pre-match press conference.
“Beautiful country and had a couple of good training days so excited for the start of the Super 8’s for us tomorrow and yeah completely fresh start that’s sort of how we’re seeing it and excited for the first challenge which is USA tomorrow”, he added.
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