Proteas bowling unit 'comes of age'

OF the two major disciplines it would be fair to suggest that the Proteas' bowling has been the Achilles heel in their quest to become a real juggernaut - to steal a line from Ravi Shastri — T20 outfit.

- ZAAHIER ADAMS

Apart from beanpole left-arm seamer Marco Jansen, there has always been a sameness to the attack consisting primarily of right-arm seamers. Even the spinners are both left-arm orthodox without any of the mystery most of the opposition teams possess in their lineups.

But on Sunday evening in Ahmedabad’s T20 World Cup Super 8 cauldron, the Proteas bowling unit came of age. Their performance against India’s much-vaunted batters was of the highest pedigree. The 76-run victory over the defending champions owed plenty to the way they executed some punctilious planning.

It is one thing to know that captain Aiden Markram must bowl the first over to India’s left-hand opening pair of Ishan Kishan and Abhishek Sharma, but another thing altogether for the part-timer to land the ball in the correct area and get the necessary bounce to induce the false shot which Kishan fell foul to four balls into the run-chase.

“I mean we've watched other games and it was nice to just have both left-handers, you've got us ball-spinning away,” Proteas batting hero David Miller explained.