Kamal Ghorui
NEW DELHI: India and South Africa are bracing up for a mouth-watering Super 8 clash in the T20 World Cup in Ahmedabad on Sunday. With both sides having quite a few match winners, the game offers plenty of match-ups. One of them could possibly involve India’s mystery spinner Varun Chakravarthy and South Africa’s rising batting star Dewald Brevis.Go Beyond The Boundary with our YouTube channel. SUBSCRIBE NOW!Asked about the tantalising battle ahead after his team’s six-wicket win over the UAE here, Brevis, who usually bats at No.4, sounded dismissive of the threat posed by Chakravarthy. “He is a spin bowler, so I will play him like a spinner. Watch the ball and react to it,” he said.
Though Brevis didn’t have an impressive run during South African team’s limited overs tour of India last year — scoring just 69 runs at an average of 17 — he never got out to Chakravarthy in the four T20I games.Ever since he burst on to the scene with his exploits in the U-19 World Cup in 2022, where he finished as the tournament’s leading run-getter (506 runs from six games), Brevis has had to live with the moniker of ‘Baby AB’, as he is often compared to Proteas great AB de Villiers. It’s a tag he enjoys. “It’s always been a very big privilege for me to be compared with AB. But it’s never been any pressure for me. It’s always been an honour,” said Brevis.
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Against India, Brevis will hope to summon the experience of playing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) for Chennai Super Kings and Mumbai Indians. The South African team’s special consultant, Albie Morkel, has labelled the 22-year-old as the team’s “X-factor” ahead of the highly-anticipated Super 8 clash.After scores of 6, 23 and 21 in the first three matches of the T20 World Cup, Brevis showed glimpses of his potential with a brief, entertaining innings of 36 off 25 balls, studded with three glorious sixes, against UAE on Wednesday. While he got out with his side seven runs short of the target, Brevis was unfazed.“It’s just about being myself and enjoying the game, and usually, the best things happen after that. Being consistent in that performance is not always guaranteed. We all go through ups and downs. It’s just about being positive and backing your style of play,” he said.
