- August 11, 2025
In T20 cricket, you can’t hide anymore. If you’re a spinner who can’t swing the bat, you might as well start polishing your commentary skills. Forget the days when a spinner’s job was to just bowl their four overs and then chill in the dugout — Conrad’s blueprint is simple: if you’re not an all-rounder, you’re not in the squad.
The Death of the Specialist Spinner
From the mid-90s to early 2000s, spinners in South Africa were often a “nice to have” rather than a necessity. Then came Imran Tahir in the 2010s, giving the Proteas a genuine wicket-taking threat in white-ball cricket, and Keshav Maharaj in Tests. But now? The role has morphed again.
In the age of power-hitting and short boundaries, a specialist spinner who can’t bat past No. 10 is a liability. Conrad isn’t even subtle about it — he wants “fully-fledged all-rounders.” That’s why George Linde, Senuran Muthusamy, and Prenelan Subrayen are in, and Maharaj and Shamsi are out.
The difference is stark. Linde and Muthusamy regularly bat in the top 7 in domestic cricket, and both have strike rates above 110 in T20s. Subrayen sits lower down the order but can still clear the ropes. Compare that to Maharaj and Shamsi, whose strike rates sit below 110, and the gap in batting firepower becomes impossible to ignore.
George Linde: The Redemption Arc
Of the three candidates, George Linde’s narrative comes closest to a sports documentary. Just a couple of years ago, he was a player on the periphery, released just before the 2021 T20 World Cup, having been a regular in the side just before the World Cup. The rejection was so brutal, he almost fell out of love with the game.
Fast-forward to today, and Linde is very much back in the frame. His comeback match against Pakistan last year saw him take career-best figures of 4 for 21, plus a blistering 48 off 24 balls. Since then, he’s added crucial cameos in the Zimbabwe tri-series, showing exactly the kind of late-innings hitting that could make him South Africa’s go-to spin-bowling all-rounder at the World Cup.
Linde knows what’s at stake but isn’t getting ahead of himself. His approach? Keep it simple, enjoy the process, and if the World Cup call comes, “happy days.”
Muthusamy and the Waiting Game
While fireworks are supplied by Linde, Senuran Muthusamy provides the patience and adaptability that are needed. Having spent the home summer as little more than the squad’s water supplier, he finally swapped bottles for a bat in Harare to make his T20I debut. He has been a feature of the SA20, even sharing a changing room with Adil Rashid, and he has used that experience to sharpen up his cricket brain.
Muthusamy’s batting hasn’t exploded yet at the international level, but he’s been trusted as high as No. 4 in the order, which says plenty about Conrad’s confidence in his skill set. In a packed run of games leading to the World Cup, he’ll have every chance to make a statement.
South Africa has a hectic T20 schedule before next year’s World Cup — series against Australia, England, Pakistan, India, and the West Indies. For Conrad, it’s the perfect laboratory to fine-tune his squad. He’s still new in the role, and this “all-rounders or bust” policy is his first big stamp on the team’s identity.
The question is — will this all-rounder-first strategy finally push South Africa past their World Cup hoodoo, or will the gamble backfire when a specialist’s magic is needed?
