3rd Twenty20: Du Plessis hails Australia’s ‘powerhouse’ batting

Tourists win series 2-0 with six-wicket victory against South Africa.

CENTURION:

South Africa captain Faf du Plessis believes Australia’s strong batting line-up will have a significant impact in the World Twenty20.

“They’ve got a powerhouse batting attack,” said Du Plessis, after Australia cruised to a six-wicket win over his team on Friday on the eve of the departure of both teams for the world event.

“Every one of their top seven or eight can take the game away from you,” said Du Plessis. “That makes them very dangerous. They’ve also good quality fast-bowling. They didn’t give us anything to hit in the first six overs. They have a very good chance of getting to the semi-finals.”

Australia fast-bowler Mitchell Starc, man of the match on Friday, said their Twenty20 squad had made the most of their two weeks in South Africa, despite rain washing out one match and reducing another to seven overs a side.

Australia won the three-match series 2-0 to follow a 3-0 clean sweep against England earlier this year.

“We’ve got a lot out of the three games against England and the two weeks here,” said Starc.

Du Plessis admitted his side had performed poorly in all three disciplines.

“We lost early wickets and there were mistakes by the batting unit,” he said. “We’re not giving our big hitters the base to attack from. We bowled the wrong lines and lengths and we made mistakes in the field.”

Du Plessis said confidence remained high. “We’ve had good success in the sub-continent and we’ve got two warm-up games before the tournament. We need to play our best cricket if we are to do well.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 16^th, 2014.

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