'Playing in IPL will get South Africa players ready for T20 World Cup' - Mark Boucher

The second leg of the Indian Premier League will get underway on September 19. The T20 extravaganza will be followed by the T20 World Cup which starts on October 17. South Africa coach Mark Boucher feels that playing in IPL will help the players get used to the conditions in UAE. South Africa has been on a roll of late and will go into the World Cup with back to back series wins over West Indies, Ireland and Sri Lanka.

“We’ve spoken to the guys going to the IPL 2021. They need to stay quite disciplined and realise we want to peak at the right time as a unit. They’ll be picking up bits of information about playing in those conditions that will really get them ready for a big tournament and if they manage themselves well and get some good time in the nets and get used to facilities it will stand us in good stead,” ESPNcricinfo quoted Boucher as saying.

“It will be a great experience as long as guys look after themselves and peak at the right time,” he added.

South Africa recently decimated Sri Lanka in the T20Is and won all three games of the series. Talking about their clean-sweep, Boucher said: “This team realised that we are definitely not the finished product, so there’s a lot of things we speak about. We had a good chat about the lessons we’ve learnt and where we want to go as a team. We tied the record for the most T20 wins by a South African team.”

“That was one of the records that we were playing for. We understand that going into a World Cup each game is as important as the others and this becomes a habit. This is just part of the growth of the team,” he added.