World Cup tinkering and planning is starting to bear fruit for Proteas

AFTER almost 18 months of tinkering, it seems South Africa’s brainstrust have settled on both their combinations and game plan for the World Cup.

Faf du Plessis was a satisfied skipper on Saturday evening at Newlands after his team completed a 5-0 whitewash of Sri Lanka for the second consecutive time on home soil. However, it was not only the emphatic results that pleased the national captain, but rather that all the planning of the past couple of years are starting to bear fruit.

“It is great to win 5-0, that goes without saying. But this series was for me more about things we wanted to work on, and I felt that happened. I think after the second game where we didn’t bat as well we would have wanted to, we have we been very good with the bat. The bowling spoke for it itself,” Du Plessis said.

“We have taken close to two years to be close to the names that we want to take along. We must stay true to that. You have given it time to mature and grow and seen how it evolved. You allow for one or two percent for guys who are really red hot or striking good form”. With limited spaces – if any – still available in the 15-man World Cup squad, Aiden Markram’s performances over the last while seems to have put him ahead of Reeza Hendricks in the battle for the back-up batsman spot. Markram was in superb touch for the Titans before being recalled to the Proteas ODI squad and finally looked to be transferring that form to the international limited-overs arena at Newlands before his sparkling innings was cut short due to a short circuit on two light pylons that caused the match to end prematurely.

Markram will get a further opportunity to impress after being named as one of three new caps in the Proteas T20 squad for the three-match series against Sri Lanka. He will be joined by fast bowler Anrich Nortje and young Warriors wicket-keeper batsman Sinethemba Qeshile.

Du Plessis will only lead the Proteas in the first T20I at Newlands tomorrow before handing over the leadership to JP Duminy for the remainder of the series. He will be rested along with Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Imran Tahir and Quinton de Kock.