Proteas face some posers

The Proteas have much to ponder ahead of the second T20 against India in Guwahati tomorrow, following their dismal batting performance in the first match that saw their top-order utterly fail.

While the fight shown by Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram (above) and Wayne Parnell with the bat was pleasing, setting a target of just 107 for victory was never going to give India much pause for thought, even on a pitch which was made to look like a minefield by the South African top-order.

There are some injury doubts over wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock after he needed on-field treatment for a blow to the fingers while trying to take a leg-side wide from fast bowler Anrich Nortje.

Whether the formerly prolific left-hander should be in the team even if fit right now, is also starting to cause debate.

De Kock has scored just 137 runs in his last 12 T20 innings for the Proteas, and is striking at just 103.78.

Amongst all the other worries about the batting, the loss of form of their talismanic opener is the last thing the Proteas need.

The fact that the Proteas were reduced to 9/5 by India’s second-choice new-ball pairing of Arshdeep Singh and Deepak Chahar, with Jasprit Bumrah and Bhuvneshwar Kumar not even playing, makes their batting effort even more terrible.

With captain Temba Bavuma under immense pressure to score runs, they have now got themselves into a pickle.

Bavuma has actually scored 237 runs in his last 12 T20 innings for South Africa (strikerate 111.26), far more than De Kock.

It would be a big step for the selectors to drop De Kock, but it is a shocking waste of form to see the prolific Reeza Hendricks not playing.

The selectors have got themselves into a dreadful mess.