Hyderabad: The South Africans, also known as Proteas, are better known as the chokers. History has seen that while they top all through the group and league stages, they crumble when the D Day comes.
This time around, they’ve been decently alright, with four wins and two losses from their 6 commitments. Here’s a look at how they fared and understand a SWOT analysis.
Strengths
What’s their strength? It’s their batting. It’s just ripped the opposition battery apart. The best part is, all the batsmen have clicked.
Be it Hashim Amla at the top of the batting order who has scores of 65 and 159 to his credit, or Rossouw, who’s been pitching in with scores like 61 and 43, to de Villiers, who’s been in roaring form hitting 162, 77, 99 or du Plessis who has scores of 62, 109 and 55 in his kitty, South Africans can ride their World Cup dream on their batsmen.
Even Miller and Duminy aren’t far behind either. Their batting is in blazing form with their batsmen not shying away from hitting a 400. In terms of the bowling department, their lone strength is Imran Tahir, who’s been the only spinner to take a five-wicket haul in a tournament where the spinners are not faring too well.
Weaknesses
They’ve been bad chasers. Let’s admit it. Of the four matches that they won, all of them came batting first, with scores of 339 against Zimbabwe, 441 against Ireland, 341 against UAE and 408 against West Indies.
Both the losses came when they were batting second.
Opportunities
Even though their bowling performances look rather decent, up against their batting, it fades. In all the matches that they’ve won, they won on the basis of their batting, not their bowling prowess.
Their batting has provided them with a cushion and it would be very interesting to see how they fare just on their bowling battery alone.
Their bowlers have been decent with good economy rates: Philander, Morkel and Tahir, Steyn, all of them have been doing decently well, taking wickets at decent economy rates. This is one opportunity for them to test their bowling battery too.
Threats
This one goes without saying. The main threat they have is their inclination to choke when the moment arrives. They crumble under pressure, and against the biggies, they’ve struggled pretty much almost always. If they can get over that, the rest seems fine for them.