With the absence of Temba Bavuma in the Proteas T20 squad this year, the hopes of South Africans will rest on the shoulders of Quinton “Enigma” de Kock, who has been anointed with the responsibility to lead Mzansi to the promised land and help shepherd the team to its first-ever title since 1998.
The team will obviously be captained by Aiden Markram, who can be exceptional and hard to stop when on red-hot form, but De Kock, having been there and done it all, is expected to carry the hearts of many South African cricket fans that were broken in 2024 in the Caribbean Islands.
The tournament, which started yesterday, is being co-hosted by India and Sri Lanka, and South Africa will get their campaign underway against Canada in Ahmedabad tomorrow.
The politics too, in the subcontinent, have added more spice, so to speak, to the 20-team tournament as well. Bangladesh is boycotting it after a request for their fixtures to be switched from India to Sri Lanka was refused by the sport’s governing body.
Bangladesh cited safety concerns amid growing tensions between the countries. Scotland has taken Bangladesh’s place in Group C. Pakistan also considered boycotting it but has since made a U-turn. But they have confirmedthey will not play their match against India.
So, all these anecdotes and other titbits have surely peppered this particular World Cup, off the field of play, before even a single ball was even bowled.
Despite calls and cries to keep politics out of sport, there was even a prayer for cricket to rise above politics. But nonetheless, the fans are looking forward to a spectacle. And as the world has come to know, cricket in those ghettos is more like a religion, it is a way of life, something that runs freely in the bloodstreams of children, women, the elderly and the lads equally.
And back in the Proteas camp, and after bringing home World Test Championship glory, coach Shukri Conrad is pulling all the strings to win a first white-ball World Cup title.
“One thing I did from a long way out was to bring some stability to the Test squad,” Conrad told AFP. “Yes, we used a lot of players – deliberately so. We always had to prioritise Test cricket, which meant managing the well-being of our players.”
According to SA Cricket Magazine, stability has, of necessity, been lacking from the T20 team’s build-up. It says that 31 players have been used in 21 matches since the white-ball team was added to Conrad’s responsibilities last May.
Results were paramount in the Test campaign, with points at stake in every match, and the win in the final against Australia at Lord’s was South Africa’s eighth in a row. In contrast, the T20 side has won only eight matches while losing 13 under Conrad ahead of the T20 World Cup in India and Sri Lanka.
But Conrad is upbeat about their chances of breaking their white-ball duck.
What has also been topical is the exclusion of Temba Bavuma from the team. The stocky Test and ODI captain has faced intense, sustained, and often personal criticism throughout his career as captain, largely centring on his form, batting strike rate, and selection, with accusations that he was a “quota player”. But he seems to be a bit relieved and chomping at the bit to focus on the Test cricket format.
After Canada tomorrow, the Proteas will play against Afghanistan, New Zealand and the UAE.
Proteas squad: Aiden Markram (c), Corbin Bosch, Dewald Brevis, Quinton de Kock, Marco Jansen, George Linde, Keshav Maharaj, Kwena Maphaka, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Kagiso Rabada, Ryan Rickelton, Jason Smith, Tristan Stubbs.
