Kagiso Rabada yet to take flight at T20 World Cup but finding happiness in South Africa’s success

Rabada has taken just four wickets in six games thus far in the tournament. Two of those came in South Africa’s nine-wicket win over the West Indies on Thursday. In fact, he was at the centre of it all when South Africa came close to losing to Afghanistan in a dramatic group stage match that needed two Super Overs to be decided. He overstepped when he took what would have been the final Afghanistan wicket in Ahmedabad and that eventually led to Afghanistan tying in the match. Rabada joked that he made the match interesting but also admitted that he would’ve taken it pretty hard if they had lost.

“I’m glad we won that game against Afghanistan. Otherwise, I would have blamed myself for sure. On the positive side, I made it interesting but if we had lost that game, I would have taken it quite heavily, to be honest.” Ngidi has had a bit of a topsy-turvy time of it for South Africa accross formats and Rabada said that he couldn’t be happier for his teammate. “I’m extremely happy for Lungs. He’s been under quite a lot of scrutiny over the past two to five years. When you’re doing well, everyone reminds you, and when you’re not, it feels two-fold. I’m incredibly proud of how he’s turned that around. He’s a good friend of mine.” He was equally effusive about the rise of Corbin Bosch, crediting “meticulous hard work and prep” for what he called a “magnificent year and a half.”