Proteas fast bowler Marco Jansen is second on the T20 World Cup wicket-takers charts with 11 scalps.
Image: AFP
Of the two major disciplines it would be fair to suggest that the Proteas’ bowling has been the Achilles heel in their quest to become a real juggernaut - to steal a line from Ravi Shastri — T20 outfit.
Apart from beanpole left-arm seamer Marco Jansen, there has always been a sameness to the attack consisting primarily of right-arm seamers. Even the spinners are both left-arm orthodox without any of the mystery most of the opposition teams possess in their line-ups.
But on Sunday evening in Ahmedabad’s T20 World Cup Super 8 cauldron, the Proteas bowling unit came of age. Their performance against India’s much-vaunted batters was of the highest pedigree. The 76-run victory over the defending champions owed plenty to the way they executed some punctilious planning.
It is one thing to know that captain Aiden Markram must bowl the first over to India’s left-hand opening pair of Ishan Kishan and Abhishek Sharma, but another thing altogether for the part-timer to land the ball in the correct area and get the necessary bounce to induce the false shot which Kishan fell foul to four balls into the run-chase.
“I mean we've watched other games and it was nice to just have both left-handers, you've got us ball-spinning away,” Proteas batting hero David Miller explained.
“It gives some sort of option where if it's not turning it can go straight through the gate or if it does hold a little bit like it did, it gives you that hope that we can get a wicket in the first over.”
Equally, to witness Jansen’s maturity from the wide-eyed youngster that looked like a deer caught in the headlights the last time he faced the co-hosts on home soil in a major ICC tournament three years ago, was a revelation.
Buoyed by a wicket first ball when Tilak Varma felt it was a good idea to run at the 2.09m fast bowler, Jansen charged in full tilt to extract whatever bounce was possible from the black soil surface. He was rewarded with three further wickets to finish with a T20I career-best 4/22.
And then there was Lungi Ngidi. The Proteas’ comeback hero has been excellent throughout this T20 World Cup, having already claimed two Player of the Match awards, and yet arguably his best performance of the competition on Sunday did not yield a single wicket.
Ngidi’s control of his slower ball and cutters have fast become the stuff of legend. He showed great bravery to utilise his variations from the outset keeping particular India’s captain Suryakumar Yadav in check.
Overall Ngidi delivered 11 dot balls and became the first seamer to bowl a full quota of four overs against India without conceding boundary in T20Is since his compatriot Beuran Hendricks in 2019. Along with Corbin Bosch (2/12), they never allowed the Indian batters out of the starting blocks.
“The guys executed really, really well. I thought they changed up quite a lot. Lungi Ngidi coming in and bowling a lot of slow balls,” Miller said.
“Found like the Indian batting lineup is really dangerous. And they hit a lot of sixes and a lot of boundaries.
“I think it's just accepting the fact that they're really good and making sure that you kind of put that aside and come up with plans that might be different. And tonight (Sunday) it was really good.
"Different fields and obviously getting 187 on the board, getting one or two wickets up front always puts the opposition under pressure. So that was always our objective and I thought the guys executed really, really well. There's a lot of planning that does go towards it.”
The Proteas did not also fall prey to the match-ups theory — like India did with their selection of off-spinner Washington Sundar ahead of allrounder Axar Patel — that left-arm spinners can’t bowl to left-handed batters.
The trusted their leftie Keshav Maharaj’s experience and execution against India’s string of southpaws and were duly rewarded with the vice-captain claiming 3/24.
“He's an experienced player. He's bowled a lot of overs his life and been in pressured situations, and it is difficult to come in and bowl to six lefties but I thought he did so well,” Miller added.
“He changed it up, different lines around the wicket, all that kind of stuff and then the pace guys also got through the lefties. So, it is an intimidating batting lineup but slowly but surely we got through them.”
* Zaahier Adams is Independent Media's senior cricket writer and senior contributor for our YouTube channel The Clutch