Kagiso Rabada, who finished the T20 World Cup as South Africa’s most expensive bowler and with the fewest wickets among their fast players, has admitted he was “not up to par”. The South African pacer attributed the decline in performance to exhaustion, claiming that attempting to fight through the fatigue had the opposite result of what he had intended. “I’m not one to make excuses – I wasn’t good enough, I had a disappointing tournament. I didn’t feel that great in terms of energy. I still tried my best but I felt the harder I tried it got there just not out,” he said ahead of South Africa’s departure for their three-match test series in Australia.
“You feel it in the intensity of your game. Your intensity is not where you want it to be, and it catches up to you over time. When you play international cricket, more often than not you want to have quite high intensity,” added Rabada to it.
Only Keshav Maharaj has bowled more overs than Rabada, despite only appearing in 26 of 39 matches in all forms in South Africa so far this year. In addition, he participated in 13 IPL games, but not in any other T20 competition. Prior to the Australia trip, Rabada was also exempt from participating in domestic first-class games as part of his workload management. He agreed with that decision because he “felt like I should rest”.
“It’s a concern with the amount of cricket being played. It needs to be managed. Planning needs to be made accordingly,” he said.
“If it happened twice [after the group-stage exit in 2021 too], it is something that should be seriously considered. That’s what I realized, and [the] management also realizes. We have to come up with some plans, not just for me, but for all players,” said Rabada.
Australia’s pitches are known for their speed and bounce but Rabada said they are “not sure what to expect” and that he thinks they would be bowler friendly after Australia declared 598 for 4 against the West Indies during their season-opening Test in Perth.
“In Australia you get some bounce. They’re good wickets but overall you get a little bit of a nip. It can fluctuate at times but not too much. The bounce and the pace are your ally. But at the same time they’re good wickets to because the bounce is so true. I’m looking forward to playing some cricket and testing myself,” he said.
(This story has not been edited by DailyExpertNews staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)
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