Having lost an opportunity to finish the ‘Super 12’ stage as the ‘Group 2’ table-toppers by losing against Pakistan, South Africa have now found themselves in a do-or-die situation in order to make it through to the semi-final of the ongoing ICC T20 World Cup 2022.
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During the 40th match of the tournament, the Temba Bavuma-led side will lock horns against the relatively weaker side in Netherlands on November 6 (Sunday), at the Adelaide Oval.
With the Dutch having already eliminated from the semi-final race with three losses, South Africa would surely back themselves to win the contest for sure. But with the tournament already witnessing quite a few upsets and more close finishes than any other edition of the T20 World Cup, the Proteas would be wary enough to not afford any slip-up in their march towards the final stage of event.
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The Netherlands, on the other hand, would like to finish their campaign on a high, after registering a convincing 5-wicket victory during their previous match against Zimbabwe.
SA vs NED pitch report tomorrow match Adelaide Oval
During the two back-to-back matches at the Adelaide Oval on Friday, the pitch did hold up a bit, and the spinners made full use of this slowness of the surface by providing extra flight to the deliveries.
During the New Zealand versus Ireland match earlier, the likes of Gareth Delany, and later the Kiwi pair of Mitchell Santner and Ish Sodhi, tasted success while bowling a slow as possible to outfox the batters with the lack of pace.
Post winning the ‘Player of the Match’ award for his half-century knock during the next match at this venue versus Afghanistan, Australia’s Glenn Maxwell did agree with the aforementioned observation.
“During the day, it was quite slow and taking spin, it was holding up a little bit. It was quite hard to press the issue. We got to about the 12th over mark where we just had to put a total on the board to make sure we gave ourselves a chance of winning the game,” remarked Maxwell.
Despite it all, the Adelaide Oval pitch on Sunday will yet again suit the batters generally, in their bid to hit through the line. The batting first sides have had to do a lot of hard work in the previous few matches here while defending challenging totals.
