Dewald Brevis backed to end South Africa's wait for maiden T20 crown
&imwidth=600&imheight=450&format=webp&quality=medium "Dewald Brevis backed to end South Africa's wait for maiden T20 crown")
Dewald Brevis backed to end South Africa's wait for maiden T20 crown Photograph: (Others)
Amid uncertainty over David Miller’s availability as he recovers from a groin injury, Dewald Brevis is the name the Proteas will build their batting attack around at the T20 World Cup.
‘Our trump card is always going to be Brevis’ - this is what a South African player seven years older than him, Ryan Rickelton, said about ‘Baby AB’ ahead of the 2026 T20 World Cup. Dewald Brevis is one name the cricket world is excited to watch unleash in the 20-team tournament, which begins in 10 days in India and Sri Lanka. In the lead-up to the T20 WC, Brevis found form just at the right time, hitting 53, 75* and 101* in his last three SA20 games, finishing the latest edition as the second-highest run-scorer after Quinton de Kock.
Amid uncertainty over David Miller’s availability as he recovers from a groin injury, Brevis is the name the Proteas will build their batting attack around as they aim to better their last time result, where they finished as the runners-up. While it was Heinrich Klaasen and Miller who almost took their team across the winning line, South Africa looks at Brevis as their trump card this time.
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"Our trump card is always going to be Brevis, just with the way he plays the game. He does some stuff and some things that a lot of us can't do," Rickelton, who recently got added to South Africa’s T20 World Cup squad, said ahead of his side’s first T20I against the West Indies in Cape Town.
Brevis’ form was one of the reasons why Pretoria Capitals (PC) made it to the SA20 finale this season. Narrowing down on his batting position, which eventually made all the difference for him and his team, PC captain Keshav Maharaj explained how just one tweak unveiled Brevis' attacking side.
While Brevis had scored a mere 105 runs (in seven innings) batting at number five this season, his numbers and performance surged after PC promoted him to number four, and Maharaj explains how.
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"Maybe we held him back a little bit at the start of the competition, and maybe that's why it was a bit erratic in the way it came across," Maharaj said after the SA20 final.
"With the responsibility batting at No. 4, he showed what he's capable of in the last three games.
"The maturity shown in these last couple of games, no one would have expected Brevis to do that. We know him to be a hard-hitting, six-hitting player, but he just showed his composure and his class. He's someone that we know; if he bats 50 balls, he'll get a hundred. Hopefully, it's onwards and upwards from here for him, and he shows that maturity whenever he plays in any format of the game."
Meanwhile, South Africa is placed in Group D alongside New Zealand, Afghanistan, Canada and the UAE.
