World Cup 2023 Top Contenders: South Africa has achieved another big victory in the World Cup 2023. In the match played on Tuesday (24) night, Proteas defeated Bangladesh by 149 runs. This was the fourth victory of the Proteas team in five matches of this tournament. This team recorded all four victories in a similar fashion. The result is that this team is at second position in the points table and is far ahead of all other teams in terms of net run rate.
Leaving aside the upset against Netherlands, the Proteas team has created a lot of chaos in the rest of the tournament so far. In its very first match, this team had scored the biggest score in World Cup history. After making a huge score of 428 runs, Proteas defeated Sri Lanka by 102 runs. After this, in the second match, this team defeated Australia by 134 runs. After narrowly losing the third match to Netherlands, they defeated England by 229 runs in the fourth match. Due to these amazing performances one after the other, South Africa is now being considered as the favorite of this World Cup.
Why is South Africa a contender to win the World Cup?
So far in the World Cup 2023, all the players of South Africa’s squad who have been given a chance in the playing-11, have all shown excellent performance. Batsmen from number 1 to number 7 are scoring a lot of runs and playing in a explosive manner. In bowling, fast bowlers and spinners are doing their job very well. The Proteas players have not made much mistakes in fielding. Apart from this, after the way she has defeated five-time world champion Australia and defending champion England, she is definitely a contender to become the champion.
Batting is the strongest link of the team
South African batsmen are in great form in this World Cup. Opener Quinton De Kock is on top in terms of runs in this tournament (407 runs). He has scored three centuries in this World Cup. No other batsman has more than one century to his name. The biggest innings of this tournament (174 runs) also came from his bat. Along with this, Heinrich Klaasen (288) and Aiden Markram (265) are also among the top-10 batsmen who have scored the most runs. That means, among the top-10 batsmen in this tournament, three batsmen are from South Africa.
Proteas have four players in the top-8 who scored explosive runs.
Proteas batsman Heinrich Klaasen is on top in terms of scoring runs at the highest strike rate in this World Cup. He is scoring runs at a strike rate of 150+. David Miller, Marco Yansin and Aiden Markram are also following in his footsteps and are among the batsmen with top-8 strike rates. That means, among the 8 batsmen with the highest strike rate, there are four players from South Africa.
Score of 380+ in three matches
South Africa has batted first in four matches in this tournament and has scored 300+ runs in all these matches. In three of these matches, this team has scored more than 380 runs. She has also made the highest score (428) in World Cup history. Due to scoring big in every match, this team puts the opposition teams under pressure. With this, Aiden Markram has scored the fastest century in World Cup history. This team has given chances to 8 batsmen so far and all of them have played big innings in at least one match. In such a situation, the strong batting order seems to be the biggest strength of this team.
Bowlers are also playing their role
The team’s fast bowling attack is also at its best. Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Gerald Coetzee and Lizard Williams are taking wickets regularly. Keshav Maharaj is performing brilliantly in the spin department. Whenever Tabrez Shamsi got a chance, he gave his 100%.