South Africa’s batters will relish the placid wickets at the Champions Trophy venues but need their bowlers to be more disciplined after two chastening defeats in their recent Tri-Series fixtures in Pakistan, according to captain Temba Bavuma.
South Africa take on Afghanistan in their group stage opener in Karachi on Friday, but come into the game on the back of six straight losses in the 50-over format. They also have Australia and England in their pool.
Bavuma’s side scored 304 in a Tri-Series fixture against New Zealand in Lahore and 352 against hosts Pakistan in Karachi, but lost both those games as their bowlers failed to defend the sizeable totals.
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“Probably batter-friendly wickets and quite a nice challenge for the bowlers,” Bavuma said when asked on Thursday what he expected from the conditions.
“Our challenge as a bowling unit is to be one of the more disciplined and precise (in the tournament). And always look for opportunities to take wickets.”
Bavuma will have two of his key seamers to call on after Kagiso Rabada and Marco Jansen sat out the Tri-Series games, along with several batters.
Afghanistan beat a depleted South Africa twice in a bilateral series in Sharjah in September, and Bavuma is under no illusions as to their prowess.
“We’ve got a proper opening game against Afghanistan who are super competitive, especially in these types of conditions. The challenge that they’ll bring from a slow bowling point of view, their spinners and also their swing bowlers and seamers, that’s really going to ask certain questions of us.”
South Africa lifted the Champions Trophy in 1998, to date their only piece of silverware in a senior ICC competition.
They have got to the latter stages of plenty of tournaments since then and failed to lift the trophy, but Bavuma said they are confident they can pull off a win this time round.
“Like all the tournaments we’ll come in with the prospect of seeing ourselves in the final but eventually obviously getting over the line,” he said.
“I think the nice thing is that we have guys with that experience. There’s no negativity from the fact that we haven’t been able to be successful in other ICC events. It’s more that there’s a lot of positivity and confidence in terms of our ability.
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“We understand the Champions Trophy is a little bit different, it’s almost like every game is a knockout (fixture) and our mindset really is to make sure that we pitch up and play our best game of cricket.”
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