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Tuesday, July 8, 2025

Windies to unleash firepower in T20 clash

by

20150108

CAPE TOWN–A re­in­forced West In­dies out­fit takes on South Africa, with­out some of its lead­ing play­ers, in the first of a three-match Twen­ty20 In­ter­na­tion­al (T20I) se­ries at New­lands to­day.

"It's a for­mat that we have done well in and we are look­ing to con­tin­ue in that way. We are very con­fi­dent," de­clared cap­tain Dar­ren Sam­my.

"We have won a world cup three years ago and we be­lieve we have some of the best play­ers in the world in that for­mat. We have shown how well we can play."

West In­dies, who are with­out the ICC's No 1 and No 2-ranked T20 bowlers, Samuel Badree and Sunil Nar­ine, are pack­ing more fire-pow­er than they did when they lost to the South Africans two-nil in the three-test se­ries which con­clud­ed this week.

Chris Gayle's re­turn is ex­pect­ed to be a mas­sive boost while Kieron Pol­lard and Lendl Sim­mons will bol­ster a bat­ting line-up that strug­gled against Dale Steyn, Morne Morkel, and Ver­non Phi­lan­der in the Test se­ries.

"Are you ready for me?" Gayle asked the me­dia as he walked past jour­nal­ists at the end of the third Test.

He missed the Test se­ries with a back in­jury but was pre­vi­ous­ly play­ing for a South African fran­chise, the Li­ons, in the lo­cal T20 tour­na­ment, scor­ing the com­pe­ti­tion's first hun­dred and fin­ish­ing the fifth-high­est run scor­er over­all.

"Win­ning the se­ries will be the most im­por­tant thing," de­clared all­rounder An­dre Rus­sell who, like Sam­my and Pol­lard, were play­ing in South Africa a lit­tle less than a month ago, in the do­mes­tic twen­ty-over tour­na­ment, and will be fa­mil­iar with con­di­tions.

"Con­tribut­ing to the team and win­ning the se­ries will mean a lot more to me than get­ting the man of the se­ries. We just have to be pos­i­tive and come against the pro­teas with fire."

West In­dies, on pa­per, look the bet­ter side, with the likes of Gayle, Sim­mons, Pol­lard, Rus­sell, and Sam­my be­ing renowned the world over for their prowess in the 20-over for­mat.

South Africa, how­ev­er, will be with­out the ser­vices of AB de Vil­liers, Morne Morkel Ver­non Phi­lan­der and Steyn, their best bowler.

The Pro­teas will re­ly heav­i­ly on skip­per Faf du Plessis who has de­scribed West In­dies as "the dom­i­nant T20 team in the world at the mo­ment."

David Miller is ex­pect­ed to pro­vide some fire­works in a bat­ting or­der that looks weak while their pace at­tack will be led by Kyle Ab­bott, Wayne Par­nell, and Marchant de Lange.

"Play­ing in the ram slam was a good ex­pe­ri­ence and I sure­ly had some good time play­ing on these wick­ets," said Rus­sell, who be­lieves he has a key role to play in the team.

"So I just hope I can con­tribute big for the team bowl­ing and bat­ting on these types of wick­ets be­cause I was here a month ago so I am ac­cus­tomed to the con­di­tions."

West In­dies and South Africa have not met in T20 crick­et since 2010 and the vis­i­tors have on­ly won one of their six en­coun­ters in the short­est for­mat, at Port Eliz­a­beth back in 2007.

"Here in Cape town I have seen a lot of ads about pro­te­fire so I guess Cape Town will be blaz­ing and some­body will come out vic­to­ri­ous and hope­ful­ly that is the ma­roon fire," said Sam­my.

"It will be a dif­fi­cult 11 to pick but what­ev­er 11 we put out will go out and be very com­pet­i­tive against South Africa".

First ball is 6 pm (12 noon east­ern Caribbean Time/11 am Ja­maica Time).

Squads

South Africa: Faf du Plessis (c), Morne van Wyk (wk), Kyle Ab­bott, Kag­iso Raba­da, Rilee Rossouw, JP Du­miny, Charl Langeveldt, Aaron Phangiso, Wayne Par­nell, Marchant de Lange, David Wiese, Farhaan Be­har­di­en, Reeza Hen­dricks, Im­ran Tahir, David Miller, Justin On­tong.

West In­dies: Dar­ren Sam­my (c), De­nesh Ramdin (wk), Kieron Pol­lard, Chris Gayle, An­dre Fletch­er, Sulie­man Benn, Car­los Brath­waite, Shel­don Cot­trell, Ash­ley Nurse, Ja­son Hold­er, Lendl Sim­mons, Mar­lon Samuels, Dwayne Smith, An­dre Rus­sell.?


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