International cricket has swum across to the other side of the Swan River but Perth’s X-factor remains unchanged. There will be pace. And bounce too. Rohit Sharma and Rahul Dravid walked up to the centre under overcast skies and found a green-tinged pitch underneath the covers. The forecast is for it to remain cloudy even on Sunday with some possibility of rain. The pitch will sweat under the covers but since it’s a double header on Sunday, it should wear off by the time Sharma goes for the toss. So, there may not be a lot of lateral movement.
But the bounce could be steep. Among all the Australian venues, Optus offers the steepest bounce. The margin is considerable since comparable venues like Geelong or Carrara Oval aren’t hosting World Cup matches. South Africa have taken note of that. “What we've seen in the last few games, it's been a really good wicket. Lots of pace and bounce,” said fast bowler Anrich Nortje, who has been bowling some of the quickest deliveries in the last two years.
“Still not sure what’s going to happen, how it’s going to play out. It might be a little bit different. Might be on a different strip and it plays differently, but generally we're just going to look to try and sort of keep our areas and try and sort of identify what is a good length and a good line on the day and try and stick to that.”
The good length at Optus sends the ball at an average of 0.91m, compared to Melbourne’s 0.83, Sydney’s 0.82 and Adelaide’s 0.81. That means the batter has to be more cautious on the front foot if he wants to play on the up. Any back foot shot will have to deal with more bounce, making it a little difficult to control. India seemed prepared for the challenge. “It seems to be a good wicket,” India batting coach Vikram Rathour said on Saturday. “Melbourne was tough, but from what we've seen, this looks better, more even paced and more even bounce. Let's see how it goes.”
{{/usCountry}}The good length at Optus sends the ball at an average of 0.91m, compared to Melbourne’s 0.83, Sydney’s 0.82 and Adelaide’s 0.81. That means the batter has to be more cautious on the front foot if he wants to play on the up. Any back foot shot will have to deal with more bounce, making it a little difficult to control. India seemed prepared for the challenge. “It seems to be a good wicket,” India batting coach Vikram Rathour said on Saturday. “Melbourne was tough, but from what we've seen, this looks better, more even paced and more even bounce. Let's see how it goes.”
{{/usCountry}}On such pitches, it is imperative that the fast bowlers don't get carried away. Not doing ‘anything fancy’, as Nortje put it. “Try and stick to our basics and sort of restrict—get as many wickets as possible, obviously, but restrict the runs as much as possible.” Nortje is backing South Africa’s bowlers to come good against India. “We see ourselves as one of the best pace attacks,” he said. “We have a great variety. We cover a lot of bases with our attack. Definitely as a pace attack, we back ourselves against any team to go out and do what we have to on the day to try and get over the line.”
India won’t be baulked by this. Having spent more than a week in Perth before the tournament started, they are expected to know what it takes to score here. And that pace bowling line-up of Bhuvneshwar Kumar, Arshdeep Singh, Mohammed Shami and Hardik Pandya is more than capable of giving South Africa the jitters. Familiarity is a big factor too, considering this will be the ninth T20I between the two nations in 2022. On paper, India have the edge since they have a better record this year and have on occasions simply outplayed South Africa. But South Africa have turned up a very different batting side at the T20 World Cup.
A look at Rilee Rossouw’s form—one of the biggest takeaways of South African batting—confirms that. He scored his first T20I hundred only earlier this month, in Indore. And it was due to his hundred against Bangladesh at Sydney that South Africa became only the second side, after New Zealand, to score 200 or more in this tournament. At Perth, conditions might warrant a more cautious approach, something India have adopted in both games so far.
With rain not threatening India’s games as much as it was forecast, they would want to win as many more as possible. Beating South Africa could effectively place them as group toppers but another win should ideally seal it. But South Africa, who had to split points with Zimbabwe and are yet to play Pakistan, need a win to stay in the race for qualification. “There are possibilities of other games being rained out,” Nortje said. “We can just try and win all of our games and make it easier for ourselves. We can't bank on other games being rained out.”
Having suffered two last-ball defeats, Pakistan are not exactly in charge of their fate. If India win though, Pakistan stay in contention but will have to beat South Africa, Netherlands and Bangladesh