Playing IPL will help our players be ready for T20 World Cup: South Africa coach Mark Boucher

South Africa head coach Mark Boucher reckons that the upcoming half of the Indian Premier League will be of immense importance for the players to oil themselves for the T20 World Cup 2021, which follows the IPL’s UAE leg. Incidentally, the T20 World Cup gets underway at the same venue (UAE) only two days after the scheduled end of IPL.

The tournament had to be halted earlier this year due to the emergence of Covid-19 cases inside the bio-bubbles of four different teams across two cities. The remaining 31 games will now be played in the emirates between September 19 and October 15 before the T20 World Cup kickstarts from October 17.

South Africa, meanwhile, has been in red-hot form in the shortest format, having recorded a hat-trick of series wins as they recently defeated West Indies (3-2), Ireland (2-1) and Sri Lanka (3-0), all being away series. The effort has meant that South Africa has equaled their record of seven T20I wins on the trot, having previously achieved the feat in 2009 by defeating Australia at home twice and winning five consecutive matches in the T20 World Cup.

Want to peak at the right time as a unit: Mark Boucher

“We’ve spoken to the guys going to the IPL. They need to stay quite disciplined and realise we want to peak at the right time as a unit. They’ll be picking up bits of information about playing in those conditions that will really get them ready for a big tournament and if they manage themselves well and get some good time in the nets and get used to facilities it will stand us in good stead. It will be a great experience as long as guys look after themselves and peak at the right time,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Boucher as saying.

Talking about South Africa’s clean-sweep over Sri Lanka, Boucher said: “This team realised that we are definitely not the finished product, so there’s a lot of things we speak about. We had a good chat about the lessons we’ve learnt and where we want to go as a team. We tied the record for the most T20 wins by a South African team.”

“That was one of the records that we were playing for. We understand that going into a World Cup each game is as important as the others and this becomes a habit. This is just part of the growth of the team,” he added.