Rassie van der Dussen reminds Proteas selectors he’s an option for T20 World Cup

He may be 35 years old and deemed to be on the fringes of the national limited overs teams, but Rassie van der Dussen appears to still be very much a player who the Proteas selectors will look at for the upcoming T20 World Cup in the USA and West Indies.

The experienced opener or middle order batter was one of the Lions’ star performers in their CSA T20 Challenge semi-final win against the Titans at the Wanderers on Wednesday, hitting a solid 73 not out off 45 balls including eight fours and a six. The Lions won by eight wickets against their neighbours after chasing down 132 after the Titans had been restricted to 131/9 in their allotted 18 overs.

Lions spinner Nqaba Peter returned figures of 4/16.

Van der Dussen still has it

It was Van der Dussen’s power knock though that caught the eye and when you combine his form for the Lahore Qalandars in the Pakistan Super League — 364 runs un seven matches at 72.80 and strike rate of 154 — then there should be no debate about whether the veteran star should go to the World Cup in June or not.

Van der Dussen finished as the fourth highest run scorer in the competition in Pakistan and will be a key figure in the CSA T20 final, against either the Dolphins or Warriors, who meet in Durban in the second semi-final on Thursday night.

For the record, Van der Dussen has played 43 T20 Internationals and scored 1,071 runs at an average of 34.54 and strike-rate of 129. His highest score is 94 not out.

The domestic CSA T20 final is scheduled for Sunday at 2pm.

‘Complete package’

“There are still a few aspects that we need to touch up on before the final, with a couple of the bowlers, myself included,” said Lions captain Bjorn Fortuin afterwards, “but I am very happy with the way we went with the bat and hopefully we can continue that in the final.

“We have had guys stand up at different times of the competition. Earlier on our seamers were doing nicely and now we have young Nqaba doing quite well. So hopefully we can put together the complete package in the final.

“We don’t want to take that game for granted. Anything can happen in T20 cricket. So we will look to take it ball by ball and hopefully things will go our way.”