Stubbs must be an option
One of the positive stories from a South African cricket point of view in this year’s Indian Premier League has been the showing by young Tristan Stubbs.
While the likes of Kagiso Rabada, Gerald Coetzee, and Heinrich Klaasen have been South Africa’s big performers at the IPL this season it has been Stubbs’ consistency and match-winning batting power that has really stood out.
Stubbs has been in and out of Proteas squads over the last two years, but with his strong showings in India combined with his good performances earlier in the year in the local SA20, the 23-year-old is a must for the T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies in June.
While Stubbs might have scored only 225 runs in nine matches in the IPL with a highest score of 71 not out, he has an average of 56 and a strike rate of 192. Most crucially he’s played some important knocks at the back-end of his team’s innings, helping the Delhi Capitals to pick up four wins so far.
Stubbs has been unbeaten on four occasions in his nine knocks, with his biggest contributions being 71 not out, followed by 54, 44 not out, and 26 not out.
And when he hasn’t been batting, he’s been taking good catches and even picking up wickets – against the Gujarat Titans he claimed 2/11 with his slow balls.
Earlier this year in the SA20, Stubbs finished the competition as a two-time winner with the Sunrisers Eastern Cape and as the competition’s seventh-highest run getter with 301 runs at an average of 27.
And making Stubbs an even more valuable member of any team, but especially South Africa at the up-coming World Cup, is the fact he is able to also keep wicket.
And because the Proteas no longer have Quinton de Kock in the mix (he’s retired), they can go with Klaasen as their keeper and big-hitting finisher, with Stubbs lower down the order, and also as a wicket-keeper option.
It’s taken a while for the young Eastern Cape batter to find his feet at international level, but it looks like Stubbs has finally arrived. And it could not have come at a better time.