RIPE FOR THE PICKING South Africa will fancy their chances against a struggling England side in their final Champions Trophy group match on Saturday. Photo: Asif Hassan/AFP
Image: Asif Hassan/AFP
England are a team who are in the midst of a torrid run, and the Proteas have the chance to book their spot in the Champions Trophy semi-finals in fine style in Lahore on Saturday.
It’s true that the Proteas are somewhat of an unknown force at the competition this year, since they were completely dominant in their first clash against Afghanistan in Karachi and then were unable to set foot on the park in their highly-anticipated encounter with Australia.
Coming into the Champions Trophy, the Proteas form in ODI cricket had been patchy.
The only ODI series the Proteas won in the last year came against minnows Ireland.
Then in the warm-up Tri-Nation series against Pakistan and New Zealand, South Africa lost both their matches. There was a big caveat though to judging the Proteas performances in that series as a number of their Champions Trophy squad members did not even feature.
That in itself defeated the point of a warm-up series somewhat.
On paper, this is a strong Proteas team with a batting core of Ryan Rickelton, Aiden Markram, Temba Bavuma and Heinrich Klaasen forming an imposing lineup.
With the ball, the Proteas have some serious firepower in Kagiso Rabada, Marco Jansen and Keshav Maharaj.
England, meanwhile, are a team in the rebuilding phases as skipper Jos Buttler seemingly edges towards the end of his tenure as captain. With two losses, they cannot progress to the knockout stage of the competition.
It means then they will have nothing more than pride to play for, and perhaps getting one over South Africa.
The latter though, seems less likely as this England team have suffered nine defeats in 10 limited overs matches this year and probably have one foot on the plane already.
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