T20 World Cup in UAE: South Africa and West Indies need to sort their act out
Poor start has both sides playing catch up to England and Australia
South Africa and West Indies need to get their batting on track after both lost their opening game to Australia and England respectively. South Africa in the first match at Abu Dhabi managed a below-par score of just 118 and were beaten by Australia by five wickets, whereas defending champions West Indies had their worst performance in the history of their T20 World Cup getting bowled out for their lowest score of 55 to last year’s runners up England.
Both teams have their work cut out and will have to ensure that their batting comes good. It’s a day game which starts at 2pm so dew won’t be of any concern as it has been in the night games and both will like to set a target and use the dry surface with spinners coming in to play as the game goes on. South Africa have quality spinners in Tabraiz Shamsi and Keshav Mahraj, whereas West Indies will be banking on Akeal Hosein who looked good against England.
Whichever team lose will have to do a lot of catching up in this so-called ‘Group of Death’ as all six teams are good and can beat any other team on their day and would not like to fall behind too much and do the catching up in their last three games.