The premier South African batsman Hashim Amla will miss South Africa’s tour of Australia for a short limited-overs series as he has failed to recover from a finger injury which he sustained during the Caribbean Premier League. He was also forced to miss the recently concluded series against Zimbabwe due to the same injury. In Amla’s absence, one of Aiden Markram, Dean Elgar and Reeza Hendricks is expected to open the innings with Quinton de Kock. 

Talking about Amla further, South Africa coach, Ottis Gibson said, “Hashim is injured, he is out of the squad already, as a selection group we have already discussed that with him. We want to give him as much time as possible for him to get ready for the next set of cricket that he has coming up. We know that Quinny and Hashim have been in a fantastic opening pair for the Proteas for a long time, and we also know that Reeza Hendricks and Aiden Markram have also been very good in franchise cricket.”

Gibson was full of praise of the bowling unit and said that the performance of the senior bowlers Imran Tahir and Dale Steyn was heartening.

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The coach said, “We had given Tahir time off (from the tour of Sri Lanka) to allow us to see other players and he has come back and shown us why he is our number one. I know what Rabada and Ngidi can do but for me, the real excitement was watching Dale Steyn bowling in the second game in Bloemfontein. It was fantastic to see him back to that level again, bowling quickly with that skill and accuracy.”

However, Gibson asserted that they would stop experimenting with the squad and said the window for being in contention for the World Cup next year was fast closing.

Describing the same, the coach said, “For the last 12 months we have been looking at players. In the next couple of months, the window is closing, the players have been told that the window is closing all the time. We are getting closer and closer to the guys that we want on the journey. In the Pakistan and Sri Lanka series we want to be focusing on a core of 17 to 18 players we will be looking at.”