Ken Borland

The Proteas batsmen are prepared for flat wickets or tricky pitches at the T20 World Cup in the UAE, and are also willing to shoulder the responsibility of the top six scoring the majority of the runs due to the bottom of South Africa’s batting line-up being rather large, veteran slugger David Miller said on Wednesday.

South Africa’s strength during their recent winning run in T20 cricket has definitely been their bowling attack, especially their trio of spinners, but that also means they have a long tail. Gone are the days of frontline bowlers like Lance Klusener, Shaun Pollock and Nicky Boje also being dangerous batsmen down the order.

“There’s been a lot of chat about the slower pitches and the one for our warm-up against Afghanistan was a bit low and slow,” Miller said in Abu Dhabi. “I expect they’ll get slower as we go along in the tournament too.

“The pitches in Dubai and Sharjah weren’t too bad in the IPL and if there’s dew then the ball slides on nicely. But only our last game is at night. We are also well-prepared though if the wicket is good.

“We have to be mindful of our tail, but we’ve had that for some time and we’re aware of it. But our all-rounders are seriously dangerous batsmen too and we feel we have a strong enough batting unit.

“Ultimately we want the bulk of our runs to come from the top six and if we don’t do that then we probably don’t deserve to win games. It’s the responsibility of the batsmen and lately we’ve been able to find ways of getting winning scores,” Miller said.

The powerful left-hander says his current role in the team is to guide the middle-order, as befits a man with his experience, even though he has had a spell batting in the top four and his figures there are actually better than his overall stats.

Miller has had 15 innings in the top four, bringing him 370 runs at an average of 33.63 and a strike-rate of 154.81, both better than his overall average of 31.67 and a strike-rate of 140.82 from 80 innings.

But Miller says he is enjoying his tricky, floating finishing role in the team.

“In the IPL games here we’ve seen really good starts and it’s important to control the middle overs. It’s something we’ve done really well over the last few months and it gives a very good platform for the last five overs.

“If we lose a couple of wickets up front, then I can bat for more overs. But it’s about having an open mindset because there will be different scenarios all the time. You need to be more flexible.

“I’ve done the finishing role for the last couple of years and I feel comfortable there now, but I could come in in the ninth or 10th over to keep a left/right combination, or attack a spinner with a short boundary,” Miller said in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday.

The 32-year-old tore his hamstring in Ireland and missed the ODIs in Sri Lanka, but returned for the first T20 and scored 26 off 15 balls. He continued that good form against Afghanistan this week with 20 not out off 10 deliveries.

The runs flowed for South African IPL stalwarts Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers and Quinton de Kock in the third week of the tournament, but Kagiso Rabada, the Purple Cap winner in the last edition, has had a drier time of it in terms of wickets this time around.

Kagiso Rabada has now taken just five wickets in six matches and his economy rate is a mediocre 8.72. He conceded 15 runs in the last over of the match against the Hyderabad Sunrisers, allowing the bottom-placed team in the IPL to force a Super Over, which fortunately the Delhi Capitals won. Rabada then took one for 38 in four overs against the Bangalore Royal Challengers, having to contend with AB de Villiers in full flow and conceding 22 runs in the 10 balls he bowled to his compatriot. Rabada then conceded 18 runs off the penultimate over against the Kolkata Knight Riders, finishing with none for 31 in his four overs.

AB de Villiers continues to make life easy for the IPL advertisers by producing a spectacular innings practically every week. This time it was the high-flying Delhi Capitals who suffered under his brilliance, De Villiers scoring an explosive 75 not out off 42 balls as the Bangalore Royal Challengers won by just one run. His other scores were 4 (9) and 3 (9), but De Villiers did become far and away the fastest to 5000 IPL career runs during his blitz against Delhi, needing just 3288 balls to reach the landmark. David Warner was second quickest on 3554 deliveries.

Faf du Plessis is batting with incredible consistency for the Chennai Super Kings, scoring two more half-centuries this week, giving him three in a row in this year’s IPL. He followed up his match-winning 95 not out off just 60 balls last week against Kolkata, with 50 off 41 balls versus Bangalore and 56 (38) against Hyderabad, against whom he also took an incredible catch, running and diving on the boundary. With these performances, the 36-year-old is showing the Proteas should definitely take him to the T20 World Cup in India later this year.

The Mumbai Indians were perhaps trying to send a message to the under-performing Quinton de Kock when they included Australian Nathan Coulter-Nile as one of their four overseas players in their last game against Rajasthan Royals, but De Kock responded with a man of the match display, firing an unbeaten 70 off just 50 balls to lead his team to victory. De Kock had scored just 47 runs off 54 deliveries in four innings before that.

David Miller has been peacefully finishing innings for the Rajasthan Royals in the last week, scoring an unbeaten 24 not out off 23 balls against Kolkata and seven not out off four deliveries versus Mumbai.

Chris Morris may not have batted for the Rajasthan Royals in the last week, but he has shown just how effective a bowler he is both up front and at the death. He was superb in the closing overs against Kolkata, taking four for 14 in his last two overs and winning the man of the match award for his overall figures of four for 23 in four overs. He then took two for 33 in four overs against Mumbai.

Imran Tahir is the sort of person who will still behave like an absolute angel even if he is just in the squad carrying drinks, but this week he finally got a game for the Chennai Super Kings and he took the chance with both hands, taking two for 16 in four impressive overs against Bangalore.

Lungi Ngidi also played one game for Chennai this week and took two for 35 in four overs against Hyderabad Sunrisers, dismissing half-centurions and international T20 batsmen in David Warner and Manish Pandey, helping his team to a seven-wicket win and top of the log.

Marco Jansen (Mumbai) and Anrich Nortje (Delhi) did not play in the last week.

South Africa will be kicking themselves that they didn’t just score a handful more runs or solve their no-ball problem as they made Pakistan sweat in pursuit of a target of just 145, the tourists eventually winning by three wickets with just a ball to spare in the fourth and final T20 at Centurion on Friday evening.

Following a dismal batting display that saw the Proteas bowled out inside their 20 overs for the first time in more than a year, Pakistan made a fast start courtesy of Babar Azam and Fakhar Zaman (the Proteas will be having nightmares over those two) adding 91 in nine overs.

Fast bowler Lizaad Williams removed both in the 10th over, Fakhar having blazed his way to 60 off 34 balls, while Babar’s contribution was a mere run-a-ball 24.

Much like in the South African innings, the collapse from there was rapid as Pakistan crashed from 92 for one to 129 for seven.

Pacemen Sisanda Magala (4-0-33-2), Andile Phehlukwayo (2-0-11-1) and Williams (3.5-0-39-2) backed up another excellent spell from wrist-spinner Tabraiz Shamsi (4-0-21-1), and suddenly South Africa were back in the game with Pakistan needing 25 from three overs.

The 18th over by Phehlukawayo went for nine but Magala made a magnificent start to the penultimate over, with three dot balls and a wicket bringing the equation to 16 needed off eight balls. And then he bowled successive no-balls for the second time in the series, the second free hit seeing Mohammad Nawaz (25* off 21) hammer a six that meant only a run-a-ball was needed in the last over.

The Proteas, needing to win the match in order to share the series, started well enough after being sent in to bat as they reached 109 for two in the 13th over. But outstanding seam bowling saw them lose seven wickets for only 35 runs as they were skittled for a meagre 144, posting their lowest all-out total since Australia shot them out for just 96 at Newlands in February 2020.

Aiden Markram again looked in prolific touch, hitting Nawaz’s first four balls for 11 runs, but he was then trapped lbw by the left-arm spinner’s arm ball, a bit unluckily as the batsman’s review showed it was umpire’s call for both height and hitting leg-stump. Janneman Malan scored 33 off 28 deliveries as he put on 57 for the second wicket with Rassie van der Dussen.

The ever-reliable Van der Dussen went on to score 52 off 36 balls, but he had just reached the milestone when things again fell apart for the Proteas around the 13th over, he and captain Heinrich Klaasen (9) being dismissed in successive overs.

Malan and Van der Dussen were the only batsmen to reach double figures as Pakistan’s pacemen, keeping to a good, full length on a pitch that was slower than two days ago, ripped through the rest of the batting.

Faheem was outstanding, taking three for 17 in his four overs, Haris took two for 18 in three-and-a-half overs and Shaheen Shah Afridi also bowled extremely well to concede just 19 runs in his four overs and take a wicket.

It’s an axiom in cricket that batsmen should be picked when in form and no-one in the country has been in better touch this summer than Aiden Markram, who scored 945 runs in 12 innings in the Four-Day Franchise Series.

Which is why the Proteas have welcomed him back into their ODI squad, but it is an interesting selection because the 26-year-old has not played a 50-over innings since March 15 last year for the Titans in the Momentum One-Day Cup, and his last ODI innings was at the end of the 2019 World Cup against Australia in Manchester. In white-ball cricket generally, Markram has this season only played a handful of domestic T20 games without much success.

“It’s been a while since I played 50-over cricket and it felt a bit foreign at the start of the week. For me it’s about getting back to the game-plans when things were going well in franchise cricket, it’s more the mental side, bringing options that I think will work for me in these conditions. I still need to do a lot and I understand my white-ball cricket for the Proteas was not where I would like it to be.

“I certainly didn’t expect selection, you never do, but more so in this case. But I’m very grateful to be back and glad that the Proteas still see me as being in their plans, it’s a step back in the right direction for me, Markram, who averages 27.95 with a strike-rate of 85 in his 26 ODIs, said on Wednesday.

Run-rates in ODIs are on a steep incline at the moment, with England and India leading the way, and it is the top-order that have been the oxidising agents for these fiery pyrotechnics, rather than the old big-hitters at the death. It is a trend Markram says the Proteas want to follow, but there are still question marks over what their top-order combination will be.

Quinton de Kock and Janneman Malan are the incumbent openers from the whitewash of Australia a year ago, but where do captain Temba Bavuma and Markram himself fit in?

“We’re fortunate to be able to experiment still and in my few discussions with the coach and captain they have told me to try and be quite versatile. So I’ll probably bat anywhere in the top four. I’m probably most comfortable right at the top, but I need to get to know batting at three and four a bit more. But wherever there’s a gap, hopefully I take it and put big runs on the board.

“England and India are probably the two best ODI sides in the world at the moment and their brand certainly works. So that’s what needs to be done to be up there at the top and we have discussed it as a squad. Conditions can change things, but the Highveld is generally good for batting and an aggressive and brave approach is what we want,” Markram said.