Dubai - For years Morne’ Morkel was tasked with delivering the death overs for South Africa in limited-overs cricket.
He knows all about the pressures associated with trying to keep batters, who are only looking to heave the bowlers out of the ground, quiet during the final overs.
Although not naturally suited to bowling at the death due to his height and therefore the lengths he was accustomed to bowl, Morkel worked tirelessly at developing his cutters and gameplans to be successful at the backend of the innings.
He is therefore "impressed" with the way Dwaine Pretorius has gone about his work during this T20 World Cup, with the all-rounder proving to be a revelation for the Proteas at the death thus far.
"South Africa have a very dangerous bowling attack that covers all bases, good spin options and pace on the ball," Morkel wrote in his column for the ICC.com.
"I’m very impressed with Dwaine Pretorius executing through the tough, death overs. The luxury of having a bowling line-up like that is you can contain teams and defend totals.
"When I won the 2014 IPL with Kolkata Knight Riders, our bowling could do that and that makes it easier to set up a winning blueprint and makes the captain’s job easier."
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Pretorius has certainly followed Morkel's blueprint by putting in the hours on the training ground under the watchful eye of Proteas bowling coach Charl Langeveldt, who was arguably South Africa's best white-ball death bowler ever.
Equally, Pretorius has done his work off the field too where he studies the opposition's strengths meticulously with video analyst Rivash Gobind.
"As a player you try to prepare for any situation you might be thrown in. I'm just trying to prepare as best as possible. So that's basically my only secret at the moment, trying to make sure that I'm prepared for any situation, any over that I might need to bowl and making sure that I'm up for that challenge.
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"I've worked a lot on different variations of slow balls. It's definitely something that I really have focused on. Obviously in a T20 World Cup, I think if you only go to one option you might be in trouble. So really trying to mix it up, make sure that even though at the moment guys might be thinking that I'm just going to go wide every time when they face me, even though the line might be predictable, you're still not sure which ball is going to come out.
"Having five options in terms of what I'm looking to do there is something that I've really worked hard on. And at the moment it's going well."
Pretorius will have another opportunity to shine when South Africa face Bangladesh in their second last Pool 1 match on Tuesday in Abu Dhabi.
@ZaahierAdams
IOL Sport