As South Africa take on Pakistan tomorrow, it is clear that South Africa are already through to the Quarter Finals, but Pakistan would be anxious about how the other teams in the group, especially West Indies and Ireland are doing. South Africa began with a disastrous result, losing heavily to India. But since then, AB de Villiers has led his team to a spectacular comeback, albeit against much weaker teams.
Understandably, South Africans are relaxed. Fast bowler Dale Steyn said, “I feel like we are playing some good cricket. We’re starting to figure out a way. We’re putting this puzzle together and everything is coming together quite nicely.”
Pakistan began with a soul crushing defeat to India, which was followed by an equally demoralizing defeat at the hand of West Indies. Since then, Pakistan have picked up two wins against a couple of very weak teams – Zimbabwe and UAE. But they would be aware that there is still a long way to go before they reach the next stage.
Captain Misbah-ul-Haq said, “Everybody is determined. We all know that this is an important game if we really want to progress in this World Cup. We’re really focused, determined, and looking forward to this game.”
Misbah would be well aware that a win for Pakistan would be a real bonus and that nobody really expects them to beat the South Africans. That is why we don’t expect the Pakistanis to be under any real pressure. The big match the Pakstanis have ahead of them is the one against Ireland – which should decide whether they get to the quarter finals or not.
South Africa, of course, have never lost to Pakistan in the World Cup and they would want to keep up with their success. For South Africa, JP Duminy and Vernon Philander are expected to be back as both have passed fitness tests. We expect Duminy to replace Farhaan Behardien rather than Rilee Rossouw, who has performed brilliantly. The in-form Kyle Abbott would hate to lose his spot to Philander, but Philander being the senior player, he won’t have a choice.
Pakistan look set to bring in Sarfraz Ahmed as opening batsman in place of the out of form Nasir Jamshed. We expect them to play four fast bowlers plus the spin bowling all-rounder in Shahid Afridi.
The Teams
South Africa: 1 Hashim Amla, 2 Quinton de Kock (wk), 3 Faf du Plessis, 4 AB de Villiers (capt), 5 David Miller, 6 JP Duminy, 7 Farhaan Behardien/Rilee Rossouw, 8 Vernon Philander/Kyle Abbott, 9 Dale Steyn, 10 Morne Morkel, 11 Imran Tahir
Pakistan: 1 Nasir Jamshed/Sarfraz Ahmed (wk), 2 Ahmed Shehzad, 3 Haris Sohail/Younis Khan 4 Sohaib Maqsood, 5 Misbah-ul-Haq (capt), 6 Umar Akmal, 7 Shahid Afridi, 8 Wahab Riaz, 9 Sohail Khan, 10 Rahat Ali, 11 Mohammad Irfan
Match Conditions
We expect it to rain tomorrow at Auckland tomorrow, so the match is likely to be a rain curtailed one. The pitch should offer a lot of assistance to fast bowlers because of the cloud cover offered by the moist weather. The Eden Park has seen many low scoring games this World Cup, including the remarkable thriller between local team New Zealand and neighbors Australia. We can only expect to see the same in this match as well, as both teams have excellent bowling attacks.
