South Africa, New Zealand battle in deciding encounter
South Africa will take on New Zealand in the third and final ODI today (Wednesday).
DURBAN (Agencies) - The South Africa-New Zealand ODI series stands at an interesting juncture, level at 1-1. The competition fought for attention because of the Ashes and the Sri Lanka-India Test series, which stole the limelight due to the retirements of Michael Clarke and Kumar Sangakkara. The focus will now shift to the deciding encounter.
Both teams have had their fair share of problems and successes. With the way things have gone in the series so far, it could be a close contest.
South Africa s batting unit has been good in one match and poor in the other. Morne van Wyk has failed in the opening role and David Wiese in the middle-order has not been able to contribute much. They can, however, be happy with the form Rilee Rossouw is in.
One of the major challenges that South Africa has faced in the series so far is their shoddy fielding. A flurry of dropped catches have only hurt their reputation and they will be keen to make amends.
The Black Caps strength is their batting order, which has performed consistently, although wicketkeeper Luke Ronchi has not been all that impressive with the bat. Ronchi has done a fairly decent job behind the stumps and he will be keen to get amongst the runs.
New Zealand were also below par in their fielding in the first game, but they rectified that mistake in the second, edging ahead of South Africa on that front.
Probable squads:
South Africa: Morne van Wyk (wk), Hashim Amla, Rilee Rossouw, AB de Villiers (c), David Miller, Farhaan Behardien, David Wiese/Dean Elgar, Vernon Philander, Kyle Abbott, Dale Steyn, Imran Tahir.
New Zealand: Martin Guptill, Tom Latham, Kane Williamson (c), George Worker, Grant Elliott, James Neesham, Luke Ronchi (wk), Nathan McCullum, Doug Bracewell, Ben Wheeler/Mitchell McClenaghan, Adam Milne.
