SA20 Venue Profile: Johannesburg

Ground: Wanderers

Team: Joburg Super Kings

Head Coach: Stephen Fleming

Owner: Chennai Super Kings Cricket Limited

Captain: Faf Du Plessis

Capacity: 34 000

Setting:

The Wanderers is often referred to as the Bull Ring because of the design of the ground. It is a great venue when there is a good crowd as there was for the 438 game v Aus in 2006. Crowd noise levels can be intimidating for visiting teams.

Conditions:

The Wanderers pitch is both the truest and the fastest in the country and at altitude the ball travels further, so you can expect higher scores here than anywhere else in the country. These are ideal conditions for T20 cricket, so expect scores over 200.

You can expect batters to have a lot of fun as the ball comes onto the bat evenly and the extra bounce is favourable to those that are good at playing square of the wicket on the off and leg side. The 438 game v Aus was obviously a 50 over game but is a good indicator of how batter friendly the pitch tends to be.

What to expect:

The players to watch out for are former Protea and the captain of this side, Faf du Plessis, who has an exceptional record in T20s where he averages 40 and with a 119 has the ground’s highest score in international cricket. His relationship from their time together in the IPL with Stephen Fleming, who is the Head coach here as well, could also be a good thing for the side.

Another local talent who could shine is Donovan Ferreira; he has taken a liking to this format in domestic cricket in his short career and his current strike rate is 153. Outside of Dewald Brevis, he is the best SA batter in this format yet to play for South Africa.

Internationally, Harry Brook is an excellent acquisition and while he didn’t have a good T20 World Cup, he has played very well in the longer formats and has scored at 8 an over in some recent innings in Test cricket; he is a very good player who is in prime form for SA20.