Proteas captain Faf du Plessis hopes that Lungi Ngidi will be back for the Cardiff game against Afghanistan.

Ngidi has had his fair share of injury problems leading up to the World Cup, as well as during the tournament.

The 23-year-old suffered a hamstring injury against Bangladesh at the Oval on 2 June, and missed out on the India match as well as the West Indies washed-out game on Monday.

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Du Plessis stressed Ngidi’s importance to the side and hoped that the speedster will return in the next game against Afghanistan.

‘We wanted him to be ready for today purely from the fact it feels every game is a must-win game for us at the moment,’ said Du Plessis.

‘He hasn’t bowled a lot and then he picks up an injury and it was probably on the verge of “can he, can’t he play?”

‘We feel like it is more important for him to just have another three or four days to build up his load again so he can bowl eight, nine, ten overs.

‘Luckily for us today there wasn’t a lot of cricket, so we can throw him straight into the next game.’

The Proteas need Ngidi back to get their bowling unit close to full strength.

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