London: In a pursuit to win their first world cup title, hot favorite England and South will lock their horns on Thursday at the Oval. The South Africans, for a change, are not among the favorite. In a slight worry for the organizers, it was raining here on Wednesday evening. However, the forecast for match day is only of a cloudy sky.
It has often seen that fortune of the South African cricket team often lacks and therefore this time Africa spearhead Dale Steyn has already been ruled out of the opening match.
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South African skipper Faf DuPlesis said, “Dale is a big loss to our team but we expected it. When we picked the squad, he was 60% ready, so we anticipated for this to happen. But a fit Steyn would have made our attack a strong one, so we need to make a few changes to our team for England.”
Steyn absence gives England, already at the top of their game, a great advantage. South Africa will now bank on their other premier pacers, like Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi, to stop the storming English opening pair of Jason Roy and Jonny Bairstow.
Till now England and South Africa have locked horns for six times in the world cup both winning 3 each.
However, England carrying a slight edge over South Africa as in their last 19 ODI matches England have won 15.