Dayyaan Galiem, Marco Jansen, and Delano Potgieter are the best-placed South African pacers in the list of top-performing bowlers, midway through Season 3 of SA20, the country's domestic T20 tournament.
The right-arm medium pacer Galiem is placed fourth with seven wickets, Jansen has six wickets from five matches and is placed fifth while Potgieter, another fast-bowling all-rounder, is placed sixth with five wickets.
The performance of all those who can bowl fast is crucial for South Africa as the number of such bowlers currently available for the upcoming Champions Trophy is quite small because of a growing list of injured pacers.
Gerald Coetzee is the latest bowler to join the sick bay and has to withdraw from SA20 because of a groin injury. Coetzee suffered the injury last Wednesday and is out of the remaining part of the SA20 Season 3.
South Africa has already lost Anrich Nortje for the Champions Trophy after suffering a back injury last week. Nortje was due to play in South Africa's white-ball series against Pakistan but broke his toe in the nets and the back injury has put him out for the next 6-8 weeks.
Coetzee was expected to be a replacement for Nortje but his injury raises major concerns for depleting fast bowling stock because Nandre Burger, Lizaad Williams, and Beuran Hendricks are already injured before the start of the SA20 and doubtful for the Champions Trophy.
Former South Africa pacer Allan Donald feels the current environment of too much cricket is not conducive for fast bowlers as it is a cycle of stress on the bodies of fast bowlers, leading to frequent breakdowns.
The injuries to fast bowlers, it's not ideal. It's just an ongoing cycle that, I think, is hard to stop. It's a level of stress that gets put on the bodies, unfortunately.
He said fast bowlers bring out the adrenalin into the match and fans are excited to see bowlers sending down deliveries at 150kmph and suggested that better care should be taken of the pacers with working out their workload.
Another former South Africa pacer Albie Morkel, who is the assistant coach of Joburg Super Kings, also said the list is a bit alarming.
Currently there's about nine South African fast bowlers injured across all the teams, so it is a worrying thing. We are trying to find reasons for that. We lost three big guys in Lizaad, Nandre, and Gerald recently, so it's big for us and we have to juggle with the guys that we have.
South Africa's national selectors are now hoping that some of these injured pacers will recover in time for the Champions Trophy because seasoned bowlers like Kagiso Rabada and Lungi Ngidi have not done great in the SA20 season so far.
