Rassie van der Dussen has responded to a tweet by the former England batsman Kevin Pietersen which said that only two teams were capable of beating England in T20 World Cup 2021 and that too only when the pitch is a used pitch of the Sharjah cricket stadium.
Pietersen had mentioned in his tweet that the two teams with the potential of beating England on a used Sharjah pitch are Pakistan and Afghanistan. But as it turned out, it’s South Africa that beat England at Sharjah in their last group game, and they did that on a fresh pitch, not even a used pitch.
Rassie van der Dussen himself played a crucial hand for South Africa in that victory against England as he scored 94 off 60 balls and powered South Africa to an overpar score of 189 on a pitch which was keeping low as usual.
Even though it was not the centre pitch of Sharjah and the boundary on one side was extremely small, South Africa came up with an inspired bowling performance to successfully defend that total, bowling under the dewy conditions.
South Africa’s victory over England was not enough to take them to knockouts
It was South Africa’s 4th victory in a row in the T20 World Cup 2021, but it was still not enough to get them through to the knockouts as they fell behind England and Australia in terms of net run rate (NRR) and finished at no. 3 in the group 1 points table.
Rassie van der Dussen though made sure he reminded Pietersen on his tweet that he was proven wrong about England’s invincibility. Rassie quoted that tweet of Pietersen with a surprising emoji as if he was wondering what Pietersen was talking about. The 32-year-old, however, deleted that tweet later.
Rassie, with the kind of reputation he has built for himself in T20 cricket in the last little while, will hope for a hefty IPL contract in the upcoming mega auction. For his versatility of being able to bat at the top as well as in the middle order, the right-hander can turn out to be a very useful buy for the IPL franchises.
