BEST FOOT FORWARD South Africa's Ryan Rickelton (R) plays a shot during the ICC Champions Trophy one-day international (ODI) cricket match between Afghanistan and South Africa at the National Stadium in Karachi on February 21, 2025. Picture: Asif Hassan/AFP
Image: Asif Hassan/AFP
Following South Africa’s dominant win over Afghanistan in their Champions Trophy opener in Karachi on Friday, one of the most encouraging aspects of their win was the Proteas batting performance against spin.
The Afghan spin trio of Mohammad Nabi, Noor Ahmad and Rashid Khan returned just one wicket between them in 26 overs.
That could be an excellent gauge of how well the Proteas batsmen can do on the hard and flat surfaces they will face in Pakistan and the UAE.
With Ryan Rickelton leading the way with a century, and fifties from skipper Temba Bavuma, Rassie van der Dussen and Aiden Markram, it bodes well for the prospects at the only men’s senior ICC title the country has ever won.
Proteas batting coach Imraan Khan has revealed what he believes will be important for the team.
“I think the wickets will be very good for batting; obviously it’s a tournament still and there will be a volume of cricket, and it might become tougher in certain phases of the games,” Khan told SportsBoom.com.
“How we play spin in the middle period will be important, and batting against the new ball this time of the year, there could be a little bit of swing upfront and those are some of the skill sets we will be looking to focus on going into the tournament.”
Besides the Tri-Nation series in which the Proteas lost both their matches, South Africa has not played much ODI cricket recently, with the focus firmly on the SA20 starting out this year.
“It is a little bit of a shift changing from the shorter to a longer format, but the nice thing is that the guys are really playing some really good cricket at the moment.
“If I look at the batters that will be in the Champions Trophy squad, a lot of them had some really good SA20 for their respective clubs so that is a positive.”
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