South Africa will play to their abilities this coming World Cup.
The South Africa team will face the 2019 World Cup playing to their strengths and using their defeats as crucial lessons they can learn from. South African captain Faf du Plessis believes that they should play without fear of failure if they reach the semi-finals this time.
“People will highlight the baggage—it’s like a big mirror that is always in front of you,” stated Du Plessi regarding their previous defeats.
“In previous World Cups, we wanted to do ‘Superman’ things. We thought we had to be more special, we had to do something more than we usually do, and we did not do what was good enough before,” continued Du Plessis.
The Proteas have only reached the semi-finals four out of their seven World Cup appearances. Furthermore, they have only won one out of their seven knockout matches in the quarter-finals against Sri Lanka in 2015.
However, South Africa hopes to do their best this year with their bowlers despite the tournament being dominated by batsmen. They have a possible powerful pace bowler trio with Kagiso Raba, Dale Steyn, and Lungi Ngidi. Leading wicket-taker in 2019’s Indian Premier League Imran Tahir will back the trio with his leg-spin.
Additional key players are opening batsman Quinton de Kock who can score quickly from the start of the innings, and left-handers JP Duminy and David Miller that could unleash destructive power.
Batsmen Du Plessis, Aiden Markram, Rassie van der Dussen, and Hashim Amla are expected to provide stability in the matches.
“It’s a long, long tournament,” Proteas captain du Plessis stated, “It’s not about how you get to the semi-finals, you just have to get there and then any team can win.”
The Proteas will enter the tournament this year without being one of the favourites despite winning all five of their one-day international series played in 2018. Their match will be held at the start of the World Cup on May 30 against host nation England.
