JP DUMINY and Dale Steyn rocketed up the charts with their explosive performances in SA's World T20 match against New Zealand in Chittagong on Monday, and they are in unusual company.
Going into yesterday's matches, Duminy's unbeaten 86 against the Kiwis made him the tournament's third-highest run scorer behind the Netherlands' Tom Cooper and Pakistani Umar Akmal.
Another Dutchman, Stephan Myburgh, and Cooper have hit the most sixes in the WT20 so far: nine and eight respectively.
Steyn's 4-17 put him level with Bangladesh's Shakib Al Hasan and still another Netherlander, Nadeem Ahmed, on six wickets - one behind leading scalper Ahsan Malik.
A trio of Bangladeshis, Sabbir Rahman, Mahmudullah and Shakib, own the best economy rates.
The Netherlands know the high of putting up the tournament's biggest total so far - 193-4 against Ireland in Sylhet on Friday - and the low of being shot out for the lowest score in T20 international history: 39 in 63 balls by Sri Lanka on Monday.
A curve ball amid all these straight stats is that, unlike major teams like SA, the Dutch and the Bangladeshis played in the qualifying matches that preceded the main event, which started on Friday. So while Duminy and Steyn have played in two games each, Cooper, Myburgh and Ahmed have had twice as many opportunities to shine. Shakib, Rahman and Mahmudullah have had three.
Another quirk is that Cooper is from Wollongong in deepest, darkest New South Wales. Myburgh was born in Pretoria and played for KwaZulu-Natal Inland in SA's amateur competitions.
Eleven of the 15 members of the Dutch squad are foreign-born - from Perth to Sydney, Christchurch, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Vanderbijlpark and Punjab.
But don't expect the South Africans to take this rag-tag orange army anything except seriously when they clash in Chittagong tomorrow.
"The days of big nations rocking up and thinking there are easy games of T20 cricket are gone," Faf du Plessis said after his SA team came back from the dead to beat New Zealand by two runs on Monday.
Perhaps SA, who need to win tomorrow to keep their bid to reach the semifinals in good shape, should see their opponents as those individuals rather than as a team.
Duminy, Steyn in unusual company
JP DUMINY and Dale Steyn rocketed up the charts with their explosive performances in SA's World T20 match against New Zealand in Chittagong on Monday, and they are in unusual company.
Going into yesterday's matches, Duminy's unbeaten 86 against the Kiwis made him the tournament's third-highest run scorer behind the Netherlands' Tom Cooper and Pakistani Umar Akmal.
Another Dutchman, Stephan Myburgh, and Cooper have hit the most sixes in the WT20 so far: nine and eight respectively.
Steyn's 4-17 put him level with Bangladesh's Shakib Al Hasan and still another Netherlander, Nadeem Ahmed, on six wickets - one behind leading scalper Ahsan Malik.
A trio of Bangladeshis, Sabbir Rahman, Mahmudullah and Shakib, own the best economy rates.
The Netherlands know the high of putting up the tournament's biggest total so far - 193-4 against Ireland in Sylhet on Friday - and the low of being shot out for the lowest score in T20 international history: 39 in 63 balls by Sri Lanka on Monday.
A curve ball amid all these straight stats is that, unlike major teams like SA, the Dutch and the Bangladeshis played in the qualifying matches that preceded the main event, which started on Friday. So while Duminy and Steyn have played in two games each, Cooper, Myburgh and Ahmed have had twice as many opportunities to shine. Shakib, Rahman and Mahmudullah have had three.
Another quirk is that Cooper is from Wollongong in deepest, darkest New South Wales. Myburgh was born in Pretoria and played for KwaZulu-Natal Inland in SA's amateur competitions.
Eleven of the 15 members of the Dutch squad are foreign-born - from Perth to Sydney, Christchurch, Johannesburg, Cape Town, Vanderbijlpark and Punjab.
But don't expect the South Africans to take this rag-tag orange army anything except seriously when they clash in Chittagong tomorrow.
"The days of big nations rocking up and thinking there are easy games of T20 cricket are gone," Faf du Plessis said after his SA team came back from the dead to beat New Zealand by two runs on Monday.
Perhaps SA, who need to win tomorrow to keep their bid to reach the semifinals in good shape, should see their opponents as those individuals rather than as a team.