South Africa’s unique strategy to play against India
Raunak Waghella (Image Source: Twitter)
South Africa is touring India for a five-match T20I series. While playing on Indian pitches it is expected that the host will bombard the opposition with their spinners on turning tracks. The Indian team has some quality spinners in the team in the form of Kuldeep Yadav, Yuzvendra Chahal, and Axar Patel. Thus, the touring team has their work cut out and they have devised a new way of practicing for the challenge ahead.
South Africa have drafted in a 14-year-old Indian spinner, Raunak Waghela, as their net bowler. Notably, Waghela is a local cricketer from Delhi. He trains at the Venkateshwar Cricket Academy under Devdutt and Ashok Kumar. He is also a part of the Delhi U-16 team. The South African team has called upon him given the fact that they are short on orthodox left-arm spinners.
During a conversation with Cricketgraph, the young spinner said “It’s a big opportunity to bowl to some top-class international players. It is an experience which will remain with me for a long time. The South African team was not only very professional but also very warm and generous.”
‘The way these batters do their shot selection and immediately pick up line and length is something I learned immediately as a bowler. You need to be on the top of your game and continuously improve. These are few lessons I learnt because batters at international level are always skilled enough to take you on,”- Raunak revealed his experience of bowling to international level batters.
Meanwhile, the series is scheduled to begin on June 9. The first match of the series will be played at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in Delhi. The next four matches of the series will be played in Cuttack, Vizag, Rajkot, and Bengaluru respectively.
Here are the squads for the series
India squad: KL Rahul (C), Ruturaj Gaikwad, Ishan Kishan, Deepak Hooda, Shreyas Iyer, Rishabh Pant (vice-captain, wk), Dinesh Karthik (wk), Hardik Pandya, Venkatesh Iyer, Yuzvendra Chahal, Kuldeep Yadav, Axar Patel, Ravi Bishnoi, Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Harshal Patel, Avesh Khan, Arshdeep Singh, Umran Malik.
South Africa squad: Temba Bavuma (C), Quinton de Kock, Reeza Hendricks, Heinrich Klaasen, Keshav Maharaj, Aiden Markram, David Miller, Lungi Ngidi, Anrich Nortje, Wayne Parnell, Dwaine Pretorius, Kagiso Rabada, Tabraiz Shamsi, Tristan Stubbs, Rassie van der Dussen and Marco Jansen.
