LONDON: South Africa captain Faf du Plessis, deprived of the injured HashimAmla, won the toss and elected to bowl first against Bangladesh in Sunday’sWorld Cup match at the Oval.
The Proteas were back in action after suffering a 104-run thrashing byEngland in the opening game of the tournament on Thursday.
Amla sustained a head injury in that chastening loss after being hit on thehelmet by a bouncer from England pace bowler Jofra Archer.
The South Africa batsman had two medical checks on his injury beforereturning to bat later in the match, but he wasn’t deemed ready to faceBangladesh.
David Miller and Chris Morris came into the South Africa line-up to replaceAmla and Dwaine Pretorius.
South Africa fast bowler Dale Steyn was still out with a shoulder injury,but spinner Imran Tahir, at 40 the oldest player in this edition of theWorld Cup, made his 100th one-day international appearance.
“We’re playing an extra seamer today for extra pace so as normal it’s aboutmaking the most of the first 15 overs and causing Bangladesh someproblems,” Du Plessis said.
“We’ve got to learn from the previous game. We did well to restrict Englandto just over 300 and we were only one partnership away from reallytroubling England.”
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Tamim Iqbal was declared fit for Bangladesh after a wrist injury.
Bangladesh were playing their first match in this year’s tournament andcaptain Mashrafe Mortaza said: “We are very much confident. We have to playwell and play hard.”
Teams:
South Africa: Quinton de Kock (wkt), Aiden Markram, Faf du Plessis (capt),Rassie van der Dussen, David Miller, JP Duminy, Andile Phehlukwayo, ChrisMorris, Kagiso Rabada, Lungi Ngidi, Imran Tahir
Bangladesh: Tamim Iqbal, Soumya Sarkar, Shakib Al Hasan, Mushfiqur Rahim(wkt), Mohammad Mithun, Mahmudullah, Mosaddek Hossain, Mohammad Saifuddin,Mehedi Hasan, Mashrafe Mortaza (capt), Mustafizur Rahman
