South Africa's 2024 T20 World Cup campaign has seen them qualify at the top of their group, and register big wins over the toughest teams in their half of the Super Eight. However, despite their solid campaign result-wise, the cracks beneath the surface could threaten a potentially winning run, writes Katya Witney.
South Africa should have come into this T20 World Cup campaign quietly confident. They have arguably the strongest middle-order combination in the world, an experienced opening partnership, attacking spinners and all their premier fast-bowlers fit and on the park.
In their opening match, on a slow surface that didn't suit the strengths of their high-power lineup, they adapted well enough to bowl Sri Lanka out for 77 and chase down the target with relative ease. The performance backed the strength that the Proteas lineup exuded on paper. However, the going hasn't been easy since then, despite five consecutive victories.
In Group D, South Africa were one of three full-member teams alongside Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. Both are sides who have registered significant successes in the white ball arena over recent years, but it's also fair to say that in most situations South Africa would be expected to beat both of them. The other two teams in the group were the Netherlands and Nepal. Both are among the most likely of the associate teams to be able to cause an upset against a top-tier side, the Netherlands having defeated South Africa in both of the last two ICC World Cups.
But again, South Africa went into those matches as overwhelming favourites, a situation unique to them in the group stage, with India the only possible parallel. While that's luck of the draw, it was hard to draw a conclusion as to where that left South Africa's strength when they won all of their group matches. Their near-defeat against Nepal was perhaps the most insightful.
On a difficult surface, one which Nepal would've hoped for to increase their chances of pulling an upset, South Africa were restricted to 115-7, which looked under-par even for the conditions. Their openers were cautious in the powerplay, perhaps a result of the collapse which left them 23-4 in their previous game and a similar issue against the Netherlands, and allowed early spin to stifle them.
Reeza Hendricks stayed at the crease for the majority of the innings and while he provided stability as wickets fell around him, he didn't look to be in much control and struggled for timing throughout. His form in the tournament, 98 runs in six innings at a strike rate of 81.81 - the second-lowest of any opener in a Super Eights side with a minimum of three innings in the competition - has hampered the top order.
South Africa didn't have enough runs against Nepal, and because their middle order failed to fire, they weren't able to push on at the end. Only three boundaries were hit in the last four overs of the innings. In the chase, Nepal managed to negotiate their quicks well, and South Africa suffered from having opted to play only one of their frontline spinners. It was Tabraiz Shamsi who turned it in their favour in the end, but only just.
While that pitch was extreme, the surfaces South Africa played on in the rest of the group stage have also played their part in making it hard to judge just how good (or bad) they have been. They played their first three games in New York before moving on to Kingstown. There's been a lot of coverage on the issues with the New York pitches but Kingstown has also been tricky. The highest score put on in 20 overs in the three games played there so far in this World Cup has been 159-5 by Bangladesh. While those pitches made the disparity between the other sides in Group D and South Africa appear less, and South Africa did all they could by coming out on the right side of those close results, those conditions have also made their strength and potential harder to gauge.
Their match against the USA was the first time their powerful batting order was properly allowed to motor, and that win did tick a lot of unanswered boxes. Quinton de Kock arrived by scoring a quick-fire 74 and the middle order fired as it should. But still, it ended up as a closer result than South Africa would have liked. They were 126-1 in the 13th over, and should have gone on to make well over 200, but finished on 194-4, before conceding 176 with the ball. Marco Jansen and Anrich Nortje were slow to adapt to the demands of a different surface and leaked runs, 32 in three overs and 37 in four respectively. Shamsi was even more expensive, giving away 50 in four overs.
Against England, De Kock was once again the difference with the bat, but shunting Heinrich Klaasen up to build into a big finish didn't pay off with the rest of their order displaced, and they once again ended up under-par. It was the spinners and England's errors which allowed them to come out on top and get closer to securing their place in the semi-finals. While South Africa's quicks always pull attention, they've kept a clean sheet of wins so far largely off the back of their spinners. Maharaj has taken six wickets at 15.25 apiece, Shamsi has taken five at 13.8, and Markram has taken one while going at 6.25 runs per over.
It's been such a sporadic campaign so far that it's hard to pull together a judgement for where South Africa will go from here. Most of their wins have been fragile, both with bat and ball, and there hasn't been the clinical well-oiled machine performances that both Australia and India have put in. However, if they can get all of the working parts in their lineup to click at the same time, they will be lethal. While there are definite areas for teams to target, on their day they will be unstoppable. And having got this far without stringing their best together, they now only need to put on that kind of display twice to go all the way.
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