Fantasy Preview - South Africa, New Zealand

Move over strategic time-outs, four-foreign players limitations and the DLF maximums! It is the time to forget the franchise’s free-flow of cash and return to don the national pride for the players. And so will the Sports Pundit Fantasy experts, who will now have to select their best eleven players from 12 nations and 180 players in the Sports Pundit World T20 fantasy game and try and outwit others in the same!

This piece previews the players to look out for from two of the sides in the Group D, New Zealand and South Africa. > South Africa will go into the tournaments as one of the top-rated sides, if not the favourites. Graeme Smith has been a decent T20 batsman, though his form in the IPL had been anything but decent. Jean Paul Duminy looks the most obvious bet to be given a thought to, especially given that he will definitely bowl on a very consistent basis and thus could stand a chance to scalp a wicket or two. However, it will be a tough call between him and A.B. de Villiers who was the only century scorer in the tournament till Manish Pandey’s ton.

Reolf van der Merwe’s all-round performances were well received by his franchise, but the sense one gets from his batting is that the pitches in England may just cause a little issue. On the other hand, Dale Steyn wasn’t played for most of the latter half of the IPL and he will be itching to take a crack at the opposition. The advantage that bowlers of the calibre of Steyn have is that they can run through weaker oppositions like Scotland, who is the third team in group D!

The Kiwis will look up to their skipper Daniel Vettori who had begun well in the IPL but sort of fizzled out towards the end. On the other hand, Brendon McCullum will have more than a point to prove when he strides out to open the inning, with, in all probabilities a Martin Guptill. Guptill will be my favourite to be one of the players to look out for, as his previous hard hitting shenanigans have shown.

For New Zealand to succeed, one of their two frontline all-rounders, Jacob Oram or Scott Styris will need to click, and click really well, but my personal favourite would be a Jesse Ryder, who could find the conditions much to his liking with the ball! Ross Taylor would love to recapture the form that had assisted his IPL side, Royal Challengers getting into the finals, and could end up in many a Sports Pundit Fantasy experts’ teams. >

Players to look out for: Dale Steyn, Jean Paul Duminy, Martin Guptill, Jesse Ryder.