T20 World Cup: Unrelenting South Africa look to maintain momentum against KO’ed Zimbabwe

TimesofIndia. com in New Delhi: South Africa are the team to beat in the ongoing T20 World Cup. Except a nervous and edge-of-the-seat double Super Over against Afghanistan, they have highlighted their credentials with win versus title favourites and defending champions India. As a result, they’re on a six match winning run and the only undefeated team in the competition. Up next for them are the already-eliminated Zimbabwe in an all-Africa contest at the Arun Jaitley Stadium in New Delhi.

With a semi-final against New Zealand in the offing, this would be the worst time to take the foot off the pedal. What is most impressive for the Proteas is the fact that there’s no single individual at the wheel to keep this juggernaut going all guns blazing. Aiden Markram, Quinton de Kock, Ryan Rickelton, Dewald Brevis, David Miller, Tristan Stubbs have fired with the bat and Lungi Ngidi, Marco Jansen and Corbin Bosch have done the job with the ball.

“From our point of view, we’ve been really sharp and what we want to ensure is that we maintain that discipline and intensity and that we don’t drop off as far as those are concerned,” said South Africa batting coach Ashwell Prince on the eve of the dead rubber.

Six wins in a row and two recent ones coming in convincing fashion, against India and West Indies by 76 runs and 9 wickets, respectively, South Africa have form and momentum on their side as they enter the knockouts. Their semi-final opponents, New Zealand, in comparison, scraped through as Pakistan failed to restrict Sri Lanka in their Super Eight clash. So, is there anything as “ideal lead-up”?

“Obviously winning creates good momentum. However you win, sometimes you can have convincing wins.

Other times you can have tight matches that really brings the group together, so however you’re able to get over the line I don’t think there’s an ideal way. If you look at England’s last game (vs New Zealand), you win the way that England did (by 4 wickets with 3 balls to spare) and their guys down at number seven and eight making telling contributions, that lifts them as well, gives their batting lineup a lot of confidence knowing that those guys can come to the party and take the team over the line,” explained Prince.

“I don’t think there’s a right or wrong way of doing it or an ideal way – I think it’s nice not to have a lot of close games, but I think close games definitely helps in terms of team morale,” he continued.

If Zimbabwe’s last two games are an indication, the odds of it being a close encounter look slim. After becoming the darlings of the tournament with wins over Australia and Sri Lanka, the journey across the Palk Strait has brought with a rude awakening. The Sikandar Raza-led unit were walloped for 254 runs by West Indies (in Mumbai) and 256 runs by India (in Chennai) – both featuring in the top-3 highest totals in T20 World Cup history.

“The conditions over here in India is different from what we had in Sri Lanka, different pitches, and all that. So it took a while for us to adapt. We didn’t adapt as quickly or as quickly as we wanted to. And it’s a different surface. So obviously, we didn’t go to plan in terms of our execution but I still think the guys put their hands up they did the best they could,” said Zimbabwe’s bowling consultant Courtney Walsh.

“Hopefully we’ll have taken away a lot from these conditions here for future references And I think one of the things, the biggest takeaway is that how quickly you have to adapt in different conditions is one of the things that we will take away from this group,” he continued.

In the group stage, Zimbabwe and Raza stressed on being taken seriously and being respected. After the two recent hammerings, the brutality of the sport means they’d have to go about chasing that all over again.