Australia vs South Africa is the first match of the Super 12 stage of the ICC T20 World Cup and will be played at Abu Dhabi's Sheikh Zayed Stadium. Both teams will be looking to make a strong start in Group 1 which is definitely the tougher of the two groups in this stage. Australia have reached the final of the T20 World Cup once, but that ended in defeat to England in 2010. South Africa have never made it to the summit clash. This is the only major limited-overs ICC trophy missing from Australia's cabinet and Aaron Finch and his team will be looking to give their best to get their hands on the trophy.
Former Australia all-rounder Shane Watson, who has been one of the leading players in franchise T20 cricket globally before his retirement from the game last season, took to social media platform Koo on Saturday to mention three crucial things that Australia need to "nail" to have a good chance of reaching the semi-final stage.
Watson posted a video and wrote, "As Australia take on South Africa in the first match of the #Super12 stage, here are 3 things that are crucial for the Aussies to nail for them to book a place in the semi finals of the Men's T20 World Cup."
In the video Watson mentioned three things that Australia must be able to do well which could help them beat the competition and reach the semis. He started out by talking about the opening duo of Aaron Finch and David Warner.
"Hi everyone, it's an exciting time in the cricket world with the T20 World Cup being played. I am going to give three things that Australia need to do to book ourselves a place in the semi-finals. Number 1 is our openers. David Warner and Aaron Finch are our match winners. They are our world class match winners. If these two guys stand up and dominate from the start in the first six overs, they are going to set an incredible platform for everyone else to get a leverage of. So, our openers are out number 1 keys," Watson said.
He then spoke about the importance of Glenn Maxwell replicating his IPL form in the T20 World Cup.
"Number two is Glenn Maxwell. He is in incredible form at the moment. You got to see what he did for RCB. I just want him to continue with that freedom that he has shown. Take on the game and to have someone who hits boundaries like he does in the middle overs against world class spin bowlers that will be on show, he is the man!" the former all-rounder added.
He then mentioned the need to identify the right bowlers to bowl at the death.
"And number 3 is our death bowling, the Aussies' death bowling. Mitch Starc, he certainly knows how to bowl great yorkers and he has great skills at the death but it is our other bowlers who will bowl at the death, whether it is Hazlewood, Cummins, whether we bowl Zampa, we need to make sure we know (who bowls) those final five overs because there are some incredible power hitters that the Aussies are going to be up against in the last five overs," Watson signed off.