After orchestrating the Test and IDI series win against the Pakistanis, regular captain Faf du Plessis has been rested and the South African team will be led by David Miller for the second T20I match which is going to start today at 5.30 PM Pakistan Time at Johannesburg.

The South African wicketkeeper Quinton de Kock will also not play and has been rested. According to Cricinfo, South Africa national selector, Linda Zondi gave this information and also added that the leadership resources within the team are being expanded. Seamers Kagiso Rabada and Dale Steyn have also been rested for the T20s.

It is going to be a busy summer for South Africa and they will be first hosting Srilanka. The team will then fly to England for the upcoming ICC Cricket World Cup. Du Plessis is in terrific form and in the last four international matches has notched scores of 78, 50, 57 and 40. It could be one of the reasons why he was rested.

Faf du Plessis and Quinton de Kock rested

The visitor’s who are one down in the T20I series will try to level the three-match series. However, skipper, David Miller will try to win the match and wrap up the T20I series.

In the last T20I match which was held in Cape Town, Pakistan lost by a whisker and fell short by just six runs. The match included a record partnership between Captain Faf du Plessis and Reeza Hendricks and it ended the nine-match T20 winning record of the Pakistanis.

The Pakistani team will see the return of Mohammad Hafeez who could not play the opening match because of a hamstring injury.

In the first T20I outing, David Miller was crucial for the South African victory and effected the defeat of the visitors with four catches and two run outs.

However, the visiting team’s bowlers bowled their heart out especially in the death overs when they took five quick wickets and also put a brake on the scoring.

Batting the weakest link

However, the weakest link in the Pakistani side is the batting with no batsman able to nurse a big partnership. In most occasions Azam, Talat and Malik have given good start but the later batsmen could not capitalize on it.

The visitors are acutely in need of someone who can manage big innings and take the innings to its logical end, someone like the former Indian captain, MS Dhoni. Shoaib Mallik, the stand-in skipper could be bringing either Shaheen Afridi or Mohammad Amir to give an edge to his pace attack and all-rounder Faheem Ashraf could be preferred to Hussain Talat.