Times Media
TELFORD VICE, Cape Town
CONVENTIONAL wisdom has it that you learn more when you lose, but SA picked up a pile of homework despite their handsome victory over New Zealand on Tuesday.
AB de Villiers’ team won the first one-day international in Mount Maunganui by six wickets with 11 balls to spare. They will return to Bay Oval late on Thursday night (SA time) to try and clinch the three-match series.
But learning more about how to get the best out their game from opponents who, considering their relative lack of quality talent, have to be clever to be competitive, is almost as important a consideration.
“New Zealand are a very street smart side in the way they go about their bowling and fielding,” JP Duminy said on Wednesday. “So it was quite difficult to manipulate the field (on Tuesday) - they’re very good with their lines and lengths that they bowl on their wickets.”
If that sounds like something admiring opponents would say about SA, there was more in the same vein from Duminy.
“It’s a tick in their box, their aggressiveness in the field. As a batsman you always have that intimidating feeling if fielders are in your space.
“There’s definitely something we can take out of it - just keeping that aggression intact. No matter what the game situation, trying to squeeze the batting side.
“You feel that sort of pressure when you’re out in the middle and you’ve got to come up with ways to counter it.”
All of which, of course, is geared to ensuring SA are primed for February 15, when they play their World Cup opener against Zimbabwe in Hamilton. Duminy was honest enough not to try and pretend otherwise.
“Yes, you want to have one eye on the World Cup and prepare for that - you want to go into the tournament giving yourself the best chance of winning,” he said.
“But you have to have some sort of idea of what you are trying to achieve in the World Cup, and you have to put that into practice leading up to it. As much as we don’t want to put too much emphasis on it, we have to put some emphasis on it and find a balance.”
SA have this series, five ODIs in Australia, and five more at home against West Indies - if that tour takes place, what with the West Indians’ cancelling matches in India because of a pay dispute - to find that balance.
“The way we’ve been playing one-day cricket in the last year is the way we want to go about our business,” Duminy said.
SA have won 17 of the 23 ODIs they have played in the past 12 months and lost just five. And they have been up against quality opposition - Pakistan, India, Sri Lanka and Australia.
As Duminy said, it’s about walking the walk: “We’re a team that likes to be quietly confident and not be out there in terms of the way we speak about confidence. We like to portray our confidence out on the field in the way we perform.
“We want to put in the big performances on the field and not off the field.”
Off the field is all about homework, of course.
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