South Africa captain Graeme Smith says playing with freedom and natural flair holds the key to his team’s revived Cricket World Cup campaign.
He said an aggressive policy paid off in the 67-run Super Eights win over the West Indies at the Grenada National Stadium on Tuesday after what he described as a tentative performance when they suffered a shock defeat by the same margin against Bangladesh in Guyana on Saturday.
”We felt we were a little bit tentative against Bangladesh and we wanted to come out and express ourselves and not to put ourselves under pressure and restrict ourselves in the way we play,” Smith said. ”We’ve got ourselves into the top ranking playing a certain style of cricket.
”Against Bangladesh we put ourselves under pressure by not sticking to what we naturally know how to do and what’s worked for us. We wanted to go back to that, to relax and just allow ourselves to play with freedom, but obviously you’ve got to put some brains to it.”
Smith strongly denied there was any disunity in the South African camp that might have contributed to the defeat against Bangladesh.
”We just played very badly against Bangladesh. We knew we let ourselves down and it was nice to pick ourselves up. Some of the stuff that went around back home about the team being divided and fighting was all a load of crap.”
South Africa’s chances of reaching the semifinals were improved by their win over the West Indies, which effectively eliminated the host nation, and England’s defeat against Australia in Antigua on Sunday.
If they win their two remaining Super Eights games, against leaders New Zealand in Grenada Saturday and England in Barbados on Tuesday, they will definitely qualify.
But even if they lose to New Zealand, they can still get through by beating England.
”New Zealand is a big game,” said Smith. ”They have played well in this tournament. They are a pretty balanced team and they play well together. They bat pretty low and they’ve got a lot of options in the bowling department.”
But Smith said South Africa have a good record against New Zealand and if his team play the way they did against the West Indies, they will be confident.
With a seam-based attack, South Africa have struggled to get their 50 overs bowled in time and they have also conceded plenty of runs in the closing overs — 89 in the last 10 against Australia, 80 in the same period against Bangladesh and 70 against the West Indies.
They were fined 5% of their match fee, with captain Smith losing 10%, for not completing their overs in time against Bangladesh.
With time running out against the West Indies, Smith brought himself on to bowl some expensive off-spinners to get the overs completed before the side incurred another penalty.
”We knew the first 20 overs would be the key for us,” he said to explain his tactics against the West Indies. ”We took our time because we wanted to be a little more precise. We knew if we could take wickets, we could control the game from there. The death bowling wasn’t really an option because the game was won by then.”
Of his own bowling, he said: ”It was a matter of rushing it to get the overs done.” — Sapa-AFP