Proteas Team for the First ODI agaibnst Sri Lanka

This seems very much like the core team they would play in the WC:-

1   Hendricks   *

2   De Kock'

3   Van der Dussen

4   Du Plessis

5   Miller

6   Mulder        *

7   Pretorius     *

8   Rabada

9   Nortje         *

10 Tahir

11 Ngidi

*   I think that Hendricks is not yet  a certainty.   Markram is likely to threaten that one.  Mulder at 6 and Preotius at 7 is also up in the air,   Nortje ahead of Steyn is a huge call,  but Steyn was largely ineffective in the ODI's he played in against Pakistan - few wickets and rather expensive as well.   

As to the better WC squad I would play Markram as opener ahead of Hendricks and rather play Mulder at 7.   Mulder and Markram can rather combine to be the 5th bowler.  

The Proteas won the first ODI easily in 38,5 overs. The end score was 232 fo r 2

The failure was Hendricks who made 1 run from 4 balls.   Nortje had a reasonable first ODI.   He bowled 7 overs giving away 33 runs and taking 1 wicket,

I am afraid the opener should be Markram - in the last two Momentum matches he made 308 runs from 256 balls   

In the one game played  Amla made 10 runs from 6 balls.  Time to move on to the next generation of Batsmen.    

It is amazing that nobody made any comment on this thread  - especially not on the Amla and Hendricks issue.   I think there is a problem here.   Amla increasingly became a liability for the team over the past two years and even though SA Cricket  renewed his contract recently it was not based on present performance requirements.

However, in terms of the quota requirements SA Cricket had to fond a quota replacement and the choice was Hendricks.   Unlike Amla - who was a class act before the deterioration in performance became evident - Hendricks was never really an international level player and was doomed to fail,

The answer is obvious - bring in Makram to replace both Amla and/or  Hendricks and bring in Hamza to satisfy the quota system requirements.   Hamza to my mind is a better prospect for the future.           

Maaik, I didn't watch it, but I see Tahir was in the squad. I heard he was out of contention for the CWC? 

Draad 

That is wrong - Tahir's contract with SA Cricket expires after the WC  in Ju ly and he did not renew his contract after that,  He is definitely in the WC squad.    

My understanding is that Tahir's contract expired the day before the most recent ODI and it was CSA decision not to have it renewed. 

"He is probably my biggest weapon as a captain over the years," Du Plessis said of Tahir, who saw his contract for the 2019/20 season not renewed on Friday.

There's nothing like fact and truth.

Maybe - but Tahir himself said his contract will be expiring in July 2019 and he did not want to renew it,