T20 minus 10 and counting. If the marketing mavens are looking to slap a slogan on SA\u2019s preparations for next year\u2019s World Twenty20\u201a they are welcome to that effort for free.<\/p>\n
Friday\u2019s game between SA and New Zealand at Kingsmead is the first of 10 T20s the home side will play before they join 15 other teams to contest the 2016 World T20\u201a which will start crashing\u201a booming and banging its way around eight venues in India \u2014 the shortest format\u2019s home in every sense \u2014 271 days from today on May 11. The final is scheduled for April 3.<\/p>\n
The second of the two matches against the Kiwis is in Centurion on Sunday. SA will play three more T20s in India in October. They\u2019ll be back home for two more against England in February\u201a and early in March the Australians arrive to play still more: three.<\/p>\n
Then the World T20 is coming\u201a ready or not. But how ready are SA as they stand\u201a how ready should they be right now\u201a and is the necessary discrepancy between those two states of readiness reassuringly narrow or alarmingly wide?<\/p>\n
For former SA allrounder Justin Kemp\u201a selection consistency was key to answering all those questions properly.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019d think we\u2019d pretty much know what our best T20 team is by now\u201a\u201d Kemp said on Thursday. \u201cIn the past we\u2019ve been guilty of too much experimentation. So I\u2019d like to see them stick with a group of guys and just let them play.\u201d<\/p>\n
Having beaten Bangladesh soundly in both T20s they played there last month\u201a SA would seem to be on top of things. But their crash in the one-day series that followed would have ripped holes into their confidence; holes that will be no respecters of format.<\/p>\n
So the New Zealand matches should give SA some idea of what\u2019s broken and not \u2014 and therefore what to fix and not \u2014 about their T20 game.<\/p>\n
They should try to use every scrap of the evidence they gain given that the available data won\u2019t help them make the distinction.<\/p>\n
For instance\u201a since the beginning of last year SA have won seven T20s and lost eight. Six of those victories were achieved batting first\u201a but SA also took guard first in seven of their defeats. The toss? Won five\u201a lost 10.<\/p>\n
SA dismissed their opponents four times in the T20s they won and were not dismissed themselves \u2014 win or lose.<\/p>\n
So far\u201a so frustratingly even. But that does add a modicum of interest to a series that has no context because it is happening in the depths of winter on a tour that does not include Tests and features sides that are without 10 of the 22 players who made the World Cup semifinal in Auckland on March 24 an epic.<\/p>\n
Good luck with all that\u201a marketing mavens. \u2013 The Times<\/p>\n
Source: RDM News Wire.<\/p>\n