T20 World Cup 2022: 3 Player Battles to watch out for in IND vs SA match
Group 2 of the Super 12 stage of the T20 World Cup is nicely poised as Team India are set to take on South Africa in Perth on Sunday, October 30. Both teams are unbeaten so far, which further stresses why a win for either will help them get a foot into the semi-finals and probably even clinch the top spot.
The two sides recently played out a close-fought series in India and it showed that there was very little to choose between them. However, it could still come down to match-ups and how a particular player from a team has fared against a player from the opposition.
On that note, let's take a look at the three player-battles to watch out for:
#3 Suryakumar Yadav vs. Keshav Maharaj
Surya kumar yadav is a different gravy in t20i cricket 💙🔥 https://t.co/s5gW2Nf3Pv
Suryakumar Yadav has already shown last month that he is capable of managing extra pace, or in fact, using it to his advantage and exploiting the boundaries behind square. This makes left-arm spinner Keshav Maharaj a key match-up against the in-form right-hander.
'SKY' has scored just 111 runs against left-arm spinners at a pretty modest strike rate of 118.08 and has also been dismissed thrice. However, in the series last month, Yadav scored 23 runs against Maharaj at an impressive strike rate of 143.75 and wasn't dismissed even once.
This has all the ingrediations to be a closely-fought match-up as both SKY and Maharaj will know that they can dominate the other player.
#2 Arshdeep Singh vs. Rilee Rossouw
Rilee Rossouw's last four T20I innings
109, 100*, 0, 0
Before two hundreds in a row, Arshdeep Singh dismissed him for a duck in both his last two matches.
#T20WorldCup #BANvSA
Needless to say, Proteas star Rilee Rossouw has been in some unbelievable form of late. He has scored hundreds in each of his last two T20I innings and that is some serious purple patch going into the game against India.
The Men in Blue will want to get rid of the southpaw quickly as they do have a weapon up their sleeve in young Arshdeep Singh. The left-arm pacer wreaked havoc in the first two T20Is against the Proteas last month, where he picked up Rossouw's wicket for a duck on both occasions.
Arshdeep will have a psychological advantage when the duo face off again and captain Rohit Sharma will hope that this match-up works in India's favor.
#1 Rohit Sharma vs. Kagiso Rabada
Rohit vs Rabada
#T20WorldCup #INDvSA https://t.co/AXrk89Vs9b
The blockbuster clash when the two teams lock horns will arguably be Indian captain Rohit Sharma facing off against Kagiso Rabada. The Mumbai batter has looked a bit scratchy of late, but has shown signs of breaking the shackles and pushing him through to get back some of his lost timing.
However, this could just be the perfect opportunity for Kagiso Rabada to stamp his authority on the match-up that already looks in his favor. The speedster has dismissed Rohit as many as 11 times in international cricket and will back himself to add another dismissal to this list.
It will be interesting to see what game plan Rohit has in order to tackle Rabada's threat.