 South
Africa will play West Indies in what will be the seventh game of the World Cup cricket tournament. The match will be played at the Feroz Shah Kotla in
Delhi and will see the two sides fight it out in their first game each.
The two teams go into the tournament in contrasting styles. South Africa
have almost won everything that has come their way while West Indies have lost
everything. South Africa has a batting line-up which can challenge the best
in the world while West Indies depend on one or two to fire. South Africa's
pace bowling is the best in the world while West Indies have so much inexperience
in their bowling attack that it will not be a surprise if even the minnows take
a lot of runs off them.
Click for Live Score Card of South Africa Vs West Indies
What needs to be seen is how the South African side goes about strategising
against those one or two players that West Indies have, who could explode on
a given day. Chris Gayle is one for sure and his recent Test match triple-century
shows why. And then there is a Kieron Pollard who can take on any bowling and
deposit it to the fence. The question is whether the likes of Dale Steyn and
Morne Morkel can pick up the gauntlet and tame these two giants at the
different times in the game or will the explode?
The other, slight issue that South Africa will face is with the batting in
the middle-order. They have a decent line-up in Smith, Kallis and Amla. However,
the concerns are about the batting of JP Duminy and Ab de Villiers and
whether they will be able to get the runs that are expected out of them in conditions
which will suit the slow bowling.
What will be needed to be seen is whether the West Indian bowling of Kemar
Roach and Ravi Rampaul can get the better of the opposition given that that
the rest of the bowlers do not have too much experience at all.
Interestingly, the two side have met four times in World Cup cricket and the
two sides have won two games each. What makes it difficult for the South Africa
is that they have lost two games which were crucial and because of which they
were knocked out of the tournament. Clearly, the West Indian side will have
something going for them in the game by the way of a mental edge.
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