The World Cup 2023 is just a month away from now. The 10-team tournament will be played in India from October 5 to November 19, both the first match and the final of the competition will be played at the Narendra Modi Stadium in Ahmedabad.
Defending champions England will kick-start their title defence and the the tournament on October 5, taking on last time’s runner-up New Zealand, who had agonizingly lost the 2019 WC final on boundary count.
While many have England as strong favorites in their books, not Faf du Plessis. The former South African captain recently spoke with the ICC for a feature in which he didn’t pick England as his top 3 contenders to win the World Cup 2023.
Faf du Plessis, who led South Africa in the 2019 World Cup, is optimistic about his country’s chances in this year’s event in India. He further picked India as the favorite in the tournament because it will be held in India. Faf du Plessis also picked five-time world champions Australia as favorites alongside India.
“I think South Africa has got a really good side. It will be hard to get past a team like India in home conditions. The other team you can never write off is Australia, with them being so successful in ICC events,” Faf du Plessis told ICC.
How can South Africa break their World Cup jinx? Faf du Plessis answers
For the past three decades, South Africa have had good sides and they have done well in bilateral series. However, in the World Cups, they somehow struggle and often lose in the knockouts.
Du Plessis explained that maybe the players sometimes “want too much” and do things differently in the World Cups than what they did before the tournament.
“The one thing that needs to change for South Africa to be successful in a Cricket World Cup is to carry on playing the cricket that we’ve played going into the World Cup,” he said.
“We have a history of playing good cricket leading into the World Cup. For some reason, things change. Maybe we want it too much.
“I think players wanted too much and you’ve gone outside of the area you need to be doing. Maybe going outside of their roles because they wanted too much.”
