Proteas and West Indies will be locked in a battle for the second semifinal spot on Friday.
The decider – as it is being called, South Africa and West Indies will battle it out in the 9th match of the Champions cup to secure a place in the semi-finals. It will be a do-or-die situation as both teams have an equal chance to upset the other and move forward. A loss here could mean end of the road for that team in the final Champions Trophy cup.
South Africa
After a straightforward loss against India in their opening match of the tournament, South Africa did well to bounce back and beat Pakistan by a huge margin of 67 runs just last week. The mainstay of the team is their exceptional batting. Right from the openers till number seven in their unit, all batsmen have been in a brilliant form and if they win the toss, one can expect a barrage of runs. Hashim Amla has been destructive hitting a solid 81 that helped him earn the Man of the match award in the previous match. The other batsmen Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers, JP Duminy, David Miller, Ryan McLaren all have been in decent form contributing useful runs to the total. Although there have been middle-order collapses that have pegged back their batting at times, one cannot deny that South Africa commands one of the best batting units in the tournament and they would be expected to put up a fighting total when they take on West Indies.
Having no Dale Steyn or Morne Morkel in the side, on paper, makes the Proteas look weak. However, a spectacular bowling performance convincingly led by Ryan McLaren helped South Africa in achieving a huge victory over Pakistan, bowling them out for a mere 167 runs. McLaren was assisted by new-comer Chris Morris who was responsible for sending Pakistan’s two most dangerous batsmen home and Tsotsobe who was just as economical and wonderful. Other part-time bowlers have done well to curb the flow of runs putting pressure on opposition batsmen when needed. And with Dale Steyn set to return back for their final league game, it would be a tough task for the West Indies batsmen to overcome the Protean bowling attack.
Their only cause of concern is the fielding which cost them extra runs and they need to take special care of that. Also, they would need to take a look at their dismal running between the wickets which resulted in four run-outs in the previous match.
Probable XI: Hashim Amla, Colin Ingram, Faf du Plessis, AB de Villiers (c, wk), JP Duminy, David Miller, Ryan McLaren, Aaron Phangiso/Robin Peterson, Chris Morris, Dale Steyn, Lonwabo Tsotsobe
West Indies
After barely registering a win against Pakistan in their first match, West Indies were humiliated by India in their last match when their batsmen failed to put up a respectable total and their bowlers faltered against a formidable Indian batting attack. Their batting has been a cause of concern in both the games, with only Johnson Charles and Darren Sammy playing to their strength in the previous game. While Chris Gayle and Kieron Pollard have managed to make some 20-30 runs in both the games, they have failed to convert those starts into substantial innings. Other middle order batsmen like Dwayne Bravo, Marlon Samuels and Ramnaresh Sarwan have been equally disappointing.
The way Indians mercilessly thrashed West Indies bowling was enough to doubt their capability especially after putting up a noteworthy performance to bowl out Pakistan for 170 in their first game. Whereas all the bowlers had chipped in to to make it difficult for the struggling Pakistani batsmen to pile any decent runs, only Sunil Narine was able to make any impact on the Indians in the second game. The heroes of the first match failed to contain the Indian batsmen and even after using as many as 8 bowlers, West Indies lost the match by 8 wickets. If Windies want to have any shot at winning this match, they will have to out-bowl their counterparts as the South African batting packs in a lot of fire-power to destroy even the best of bowling attacks.
Probable XI: Johnson Charles (wk), Chris Gayle, Darren Bravo, Marlon Samuels, Ramnaresh Sarwan, Dwayne Bravo, Kieron Pollard, Darren Sammy, Sunil Narine, Ravi Rampaul, Kemar Roach.
