Cricket World Cup: South Africa look primed to do real damage

JP Duminy of South Africa celebrates after scoring a century with David Miller of South Africa during the 2015 ICC Cricket World Cup match. Photo / Getty Images.

New Zealand might be playing with a "refreshing" energy, but South Africa look primed to do real damage as the World Cup approaches its pointy end.

It's an unashamedly biased opinion, coming as it does from South African legend Shaun Pollock, but should not be discounted.

"They are creating some good momentum," he said of the team he represented from 1995 to 2008. "Five of the top six batsmen have scored centuries and the bowlers are finding form."

The first point is pivotal. Whereas New Zealand might be the form team of the competition to date, their success on the bowling front has almost hindered the batting.

Of their top six, only Brendon McCullum and Kane Williamson, maybe to a lesser extent Corey Anderson, can claim to be in any sort of form.

South Africa started the tournament with a real stutter. They were not convincing in beating neighbours Zimbabwe and were convincingly beaten by India in Melbourne. The side-effect of that is that many of their top-order have had opportunities not otherwise afforded to teams that have cruised through the first three weeks of the tournament.

That is not to say that Pollock has remained unmoved by New Zealand. By his reckoning, Brendon McCullum's men have a date with destiny with South Africa at an Eden Park semifinal.

"I'm impressed by what I see," Pollock said. "It's one thing to have a captain who is as positive as you can, but it's not worth much if you don't have the backing of your team and the bowlers in particular.

"It's refreshing to see."

There is a school of thought that the style New Zealand are playing - best summarised as all-out attack - is not sustainable through to the end of a tournament, but Pollock is not buying that.

"The best thing you can do for your quarter-final chances is set yourself up to play the fourth team in the other pool. It looks like New Zealand has done that. Then you just have to be playing your best cricket in the semis.

"If New Zealand's bowlers keep producing like they are, it's absolutely possible to keep playing like this."

South Africa meet Pakistan at Eden Park tomorrow. Pollock think there could be some big totals.

"You see the sublime form of AB de Villiers and on a ground like this... you could see some big scores made."