No let-up zone: Pre-seeding, venue comfort leave India, South Africa with no excuses as Super 8 campaign begins

Ahmedabad, 23 June – The T20 World Cup’s Super 8 stage opens here on Sunday evening with the tournament’s two pre-seeded heavyweights, India and South Africa, facing a rare commodity in global sport: a contest for which both have been able to plan, virtually to the day, since the ICC released the fixtures last November. The format, designed to protect commercial interests by locking teams into specific groups and venues, has stripped the competition of some of its spontaneity, but it has also removed any alibi for failure.

India captain Suryakumar Yadav conceded as much on the eve of the match. “If I am in that situation (to decide tournament fixtures), I will definitely try and tweak it,” he said, acknowledging that pre-seeding has reduced the element of surprise. Yet he was quick to highlight the upside: “We know what teams we are playing. And we also had a good number of days in between previous games. So, we got good time to prepare for every team.”

South Africa arrive even more versed in local conditions. Quinton de Kock revealed the Proteas will have played four of their five group-stage matches at the Narendra Modi Stadium by the time they leave Ahmedabad, a familiarity the wicketkeeper-batsman labelled “a double-edged sword”. Both squads feature IPL regulars who have shared dressing rooms as recently as two months ago, further shrinking the information gap.

The comfort factor, however, has not diluted the pressure. India’s shock top-order wobble against the United States in Mumbai during the first fortnight served as an early alarm. “Since that USA game, we have not been thinking too much about how we plan to start our Super 8 campaign,” Surya admitted. “We started thinking more about the next day, taking one step at a time.”

The skipper, usually relaxed at media briefings, struck a deliberately cautious tone on Saturday evening. “I never said we don’t have any fear. I only said that we are not worried about anything,” he clarified, pushing back against suggestions that India’s recent white-ball dominance has made them immune to nerves. “If there is no pressure, there won’t be any fun in playing this game.”

Sunday’s pitch will be the same black-soil strip on which India have trained for two days, a surface chosen after South Africa’s November Test series success on similar terrain exposed the hosts’ unease against low, turning bounce. De Kock, who has kept wicket here three times already in the tournament, claimed he has yet to see significant turn, setting up what both camps expect to be a 50-50 shoot-out decided by nerve rather than nuance.

With a capacity crowd poised to turn the world’s largest cricket stadium into a cauldron, the message from both dressing rooms is identical: no more dress rehearsals, no more safety nets. As De Kock put it bluntly, “It’s just a matter of being out there, who crumbles under pressure first.”