South African spinner Keshav Maharaj has said that the Proteas will be taking nothing for granted against Sri Lanka despite recent successes against the same opposition.
The Proteas whitewashed Sri Lanka in a bilateral T20 series in September but Maharaj recognises the Lions have shown much better form in the ICC Men’s T20 World Cup 2021.
Sri Lanka impressed when chasing 172 to beat Bangladesh in their Super 12s opener but lost to Australia last time out and face a South Africa side who were also beaten by Justin Langer’s men before recovering to triumph over the West Indies.
“I think they’re a side in form at the moment. You’ve seen they’ve played some really good cricket. The batters are scoring runs. The bowlers, they have some really good spinners and fast bowlers at the moment who are bowling really quickly, as well,” said Maharaj in an official ICC release.
“We’re going to have to do our homework and not take any situation for granted. This is a World Cup and teams find a way of stepping up, so hopefully, we’ve done our homework and we’ve trained accordingly to combat the Sri Lankan team,” he added.
Maharaj said that his side would have to adapt to what the surface at Sharjah has in store for them if they are to register their second win of the tournament.
“It looks like quite a good surface, just maybe a bit low from what we’ve seen in the game between the West Indies and Bangladesh. Having said that, we are not sure if we are on a fresh wicket or used wicket,” said Maharaj.
“I think the boys must just make sure that we execute our lines and lengths and assess conditions very quickly and adapt accordingly,” he added.
Maharaj revealed the fluid nature of his side’s batting line-up means whichever one of their frontline batters is selected is ready to come in and do a job for the side.
“I think the good thing about our team is that most batters can bat in various positions, which gives us the depth that we need when having a lot of top-order batters. I think come tomorrow we’ll have a little bit of a shuffle in the batting line-up to sort of slot in our batters as such,” said Maharaj.
“But as I said, I think everyone is adaptable to batting any position at this given time and everyone is hitting the ball really nicely. I’m sure it wouldn’t be too much of an unsettlement of the batting order,” he added. (ANI)
