New Delhi, Mar 1 (IANS) South Africa head coach Shukri Conrad said his side would prepare for Wednesday’s Men’s T20 World Cup semi-final against New Zealand in Kolkata in ‘exactly the same way’ as they have approached every match this tournament.
The Proteas maintained their unbeaten run in the competition with a five-wicket victory over Zimbabwe in their last Super Eights game at the Arun Jaitley Stadium on Sunday.
The prospect of going all the way looms large for South Africa, though Conrad was careful to deflect any discussion of the country’s long wait for a major ICC title, while citing tongue-in-cheek comments referencing to the ‘cupcake’ advertisement which fell flat when they beat India by 76 runs in Ahmedabad, which he referred to as ‘their home ground.’
“There’s always pressure. I think it’s what you do with that pressure and how you shift the pressure. As for the C word, I think there’s another one for it – cupcakes. I thought we kind of enjoyed that. But no, there’s always pressure, and it’s really about embracing that pressure and we don’t do things any differently.
“We’re going to prepare exactly the same way for New Zealand. Whether we start as favourites, probably because we’re the only unbeaten side in the competition. But I don’t know if that adds to the pressure. I think the semi-final is pressure enough. Playing a top side New Zealand is pressure enough.
“So there’s no added pressure and I’m glad that we’re favourites because I always felt that as a South African team, you want to be able to play as a favourite because it’s easy being an underdog. The expectation isn’t great or that much and now we’ve assumed the tag which we don’t really talk much about.
“But if we can continue doing what we’re doing, then you need a little bit of luck along the way as well. Hopefully that will give us the result on Wednesday and then on to our home ground in Ahmedabad,” said Conrad in the post-match press conference.
South Africa’s great run comes at a time when there’s uncertainty over them having their travel plans in uncertainty due to the shutdown of Middle East airspace due to Iran’s strikes. Though it depends on their progress in the tournament, Conrad insisted it had not disrupted his group’s preparations or cohesion.
“Look, obviously it comes up in every conversation, so you can’t wish it away because it’s there. We’re just going to try and still nail our yorker, hit the bad ball for six in and amidst all of that so whilst it’s conversations, we’ve managed to just move that aside.
“Obviously our manager, together with the ICC, we firmly believe that all the right decisions will get made. So, all our focus is on Kolkata and playing New Zealand on Wednesday,” he said.
Asked if there were areas where the Proteas weren’t challenged much, Conrad felt there weren’t anything as much, though he admitted that his fielding unit had occasionally fallen short of the standards they had set for themselves.
“I thought the Afghanistan game was massive in many respects because it could so easily have not gone our way and the pressure is really up on us against New Zealand. In some sort of way, it really pulled the group together. With regards to the question, I don’t know, we just go about our business normally.
“We play some really good cricket, so you can’t go looking for things that aren’t there. I still feel that in the field maybe we can create a bit more opportunities. Our catching has let us down a little bit, but I don’t want to be ultra critical now.
“We’re playing some really good cricket and as has been the last couple of weeks we’ll double down on what we’ve done in the last couple of weeks and do that again over the next couple of days. So again fly out tomorrow, rest up well and then see how the guys pull up who needs what in their games and then we crack on,” he said.
Much of South Africa’s success has been built on pace, with Lungi Ngidi emerging as the attack’s most potent weapon. The success is surprising considering South Africa don’t have a specialist wrist-spinner, but Conrad felt backing their strength areas has been a great catalyst in their success.
“I think our bowling attack was fashioned in such a way that we’ve got wicket-taking options and that’s something that we’ve driven, especially with guys like KG and Marco especially, their impact in the match will be through taking wickets. Then we might not have left the shores of South Africa with a mystery spinner, but I think we’ve got a mystery seamer in Lungi Ngidi who almost fills that role for us in the middle and in the power play as well.
“So we’re constantly looking to make an impact with the ball, whether that be taking wickets or managing a run rate. Then Boshie has done exceptionally well, bowling at the death, nailing his yorkers, but we’ve stayed nice and aggressive. They’re all Test match bowlers so bowling a test match length doesn’t come difficult to them so and I think that’s still a really tough length to hit consistently.
“You might hit it once or twice, but you’ve got to be really on top of your game to hit that continually and continuously. There’s always things to work on, but we’re really happy with the way things have gone. A couple of guys rested up today and will go fresh on Wednesday,” he said.
South Africa’s decision to travel without a wrist spinner raised questions, but Conrad made clear it was a deliberate strategic choice rooted in the resources available to him. “I mean we don’t even have a wrist spinner in our side. Some might argue that we should be bowling that, etc, etc, but I think you can only pretty much cut your coat according to your cloth size and we don’t have wrist spinners or mystery spinners.
“So something South African cricket has always had is fast bowlers. When I say fast bowlers, we’re talking about guys that can bowl 145 plus. That’s something that we’ve thrown our weight behind is that we don’t have the wrist spin, we don’t have the mystery spin.
“But we thought what’s going to be important in India, if you can nail a yorker, some change-ups and maybe on wickets that might be a little bit iffy, some good pace can do the trick. It’s kind of worked out for us, so we’ve thrown our weight behind what we know we’ve got, which are really good-paced bowlers, and we’ve obviously added some subtleties to their armoury,” he said.
A chilled Conrad signed off by saying that resting Marco Jansen and Kagiso Rabada was due to them being unwell and that they will be fit for the all-important semi-final. “With regards to today, it’s about managing guys. Marco didn’t have a great day out the other day, he’s feeling a little bit under the weather.
“But he’ll be good to go. KG, same. The last game here, Lungi didn’t play, which KG played, so it’s really just and Kesh again. Hopefully, they run really well after the rest and we certainly hope that’s the case on Wednesday.”
–IANS
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