The South Africa men’s cricket team has resolved that it will have to adapt or die at the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2024, if it wants to go far in the tournament.
Last night the team beat Sri Lanka by six wickets in New York, on a drop-in pitch that was not conducive for a good game of T20 cricket.
The team welcomed back fast bowler, Anrich Nortje, who produced career best figures of four wickets for just seven runs, but even the Proteas quick was left scrambling on how to approach the uneven surface he had to bowl on.
“I find it sometimes quite hard on these drop in wickets just because of where you land, where you jump so that is a bit of a tough one. To try and find momentum we weren’t able to bowl on the square which I also find tough, normally you get there the day before or on the day of the game you get a few overs to bowl. So it is just to try and adapt as quickly as possible, to try and find a rhythm and a way definitely felt off here and there,” said Nortje.
Proteas captain, Aiden Markram, speaking from a batter’s viewpoint said if the bowlers have issues with the pitch, then they are equally at a loss on how to approach the surface.
“It is a tough one from a batting point of view, I think you try as best as you can to take the pitch out of it if one misbehaves or there is an extra bit of bounce or low bounce. It is just one of those things, so hopefully we can take a bit of learning from the guys that spent a bit of time out there and come up with some ideas about how we can put the bowlers under pressure,” said Markram.
The Proteas remain in New York for their next two Group D matches against the Netherlands and then Bangladesh.
