Shukri Conrad insists South Africa ready to negotiate Dharamshala’s dew factor: ‘The hard work’s been done’
South Africa are ready to deal with the dew if they need to during their third T20I against India in Dharamshala, head coach Shukri Conrad has said. Dew has played a pivotal role in the limited overs leg of South Africa’s tour of India thus far in ODIs and T20Is and it could continue to be the case in the cold climes of Dharamshala. While it gave a clear advantage to teams batting second in the ODI series, dew has generally made life difficult for bowlers overall in the five-match T20I series thus far.
“We did a lot of work before the series, bowling with a slightly wet ball during the ODIs,” said Conrad. “The hard work’s been done.”
Dharamshala is known to be a high-scoring ground but Conrad said that South Africa won’t fee any pressure to score big because of this if they are batting first. “Sometimes you come to a high-scoring ground and think you need a certain mark and get yourself into trouble. We’ll adjust our game to whatever conditions we get,” he said.
South Africa’s recent shuffling of personnel in the shortest format had raised a few eyebrows but Conrad said that it is strictly down to workload management. “It might look as if we’re slightly unsure (about their squad for the 2026 T20 World Cup given the amount of changes we make every match. But it’s certainly not changes for the sake of being changes.
“We have a pretty good idea of what our World Cup squad will be like. Again, it’s really just managing players. There are a few guys that have been here since the Test Series. And then we’ve also got SA20 after this. So really just about managing players.”
South Africa had been wiped out in the first T20I, falling to a record low score of of 74 runs and losing to India by 101 runs in Cuttack. However, they stormed back into the series with a 51-run victory in the second T20I, with Quinton de Kock’s 90 off 46 balls helping them score 213/4 batting first.
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