Cricket South Africa (CSA) director of cricket Graeme Smith admitted the Proteas have a relatively “raw” squad for their T20 World Cup campaign in the UAE and Oman, but that they have the “talent” and x-factor to pull off the desired results.

With Victor Mpitsang serving as the convener of selectors, Smith said he and Mpitsang do put their heads together to have discussions around their best available options in terms of selections.

“When selecting a squad you try to understand the conditions of where you going and which players, and types of players, you need in the squad to be impactful,” Smith told Cricket Fanatics Magazine.

“I think we’re still quite a raw squad in some ways and we have a lot of talent and some key players who need to have great tournaments.

“We’ve seen some progression in our batting over the last six months, which has been positive.

“I think we’ve developed some nice spin options and we’ve got some nice bowlers coming through as well [in the likes of] Rabada, Nortje and Ngidi and we’ve had some all-rounders playing their parts [as well].”

The progression that Smith was referring to lends largely to the Proteas current seven-game winning streak in T20Is that the side has enjoyed against West Indies, Ireland and Sri Lanka since the start of the year.

Granted, the Proteas will be facing stiffer opposition in their tough Group 1 encounters against Australia, England and West Indies, but the upward trajectory the side has shown is certainly something to capitalise on.

“I think it’s a squad that’s building nicely,” Smith said. “And I think they’ll have a quiet determination and steadiness in them during this World Cup. We will play many day games so it’ll be very hot and fitness is going to be key. I’m excited to see how the guys go.”

While acknowledging that the domestic re-structuring implemented by (CSA) aimed to accelerate competitiveness from within all regions of the country, Smith hinted that this initiative was also targeted at broadening the squad depth of the national side.

“We’ve seen since West Indies that we’ve had access to our top team more and the results have been more consistent and the curve has gone upwards, but we’ve got to work on that second tier.

“In our domestic system we want to be producing players of quality and through high performance, [we want to] push players up. But we’ve got to expose our A team to more cricket as well – and that’s been challenging during Covid.”

He added that inbound tours such as the forthcoming tour where the SA As will be hosting India A in November and December was the sort of stepping stone needed to accentuate the Proteas’ depth.

The Proteas have left relatively early for the middle-east ahead of the commencement of the World Cup where they’ll play their first match against Australia on October 23, a game that Smith dubbed as an especially exciting prospect.