A shock defeat and hours of journey later, the cricketers from South Africa battled the difficult circumstances and educated for a few hours on the Wankhede Stadium on Thursday afternoon, forward of their marquee World Cup fixture towards England.
After two convincing victories towards Sri Lanka and Australia, South Africa appeared to be flying excessive within the match earlier than the Dutch clipped its wings in Dharamshala a few days again. And after some soul-searching, South Africa plans to give attention to three ‘R’s – refocusing, restructuring and realigning – to deliver its marketing campaign again on observe.
Over the subsequent few days, South Africa will play a number of the hardest opponents – together with England, Bangladesh, Pakistan and New Zealand – and the aspect hopes to study from its errors and put up scientific performances forward.
“It’s about staying in the moment,” Keshav Maharaj, one of many key members of the unit, stated. “We need to be a bit more clinical in terms of how we go about it. It’s about refocusing, restructuring and realigning – we have done some really good work thus far and it’s about building on those positives…”
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The group administration had a have a look at the floor quickly after reaching the Wankhede Stadium and over the subsequent few hours, batting coach JP Duminy made certain that a few of his boys had a protracted session within the nets. The defeat towards the Dutch, clearly, got here as a blow, however with heaps to play for, the Proteas can’t afford to lose the plot.
“The boys were hurt after the game. It’s part and parcel of a professional sportsman. We woke up the next day rejuvenated and are ready to go again – two massive games for us. The boys are ready to hit the ground running and take off from where we had left off against Australia,” Maharaj stated in a choose media interplay with the South African media.
Despite having featured in additional than 100 outings for South Africa throughout codecs, Maharaj hasn’t performed on the Wankhede Stadium but. But when the aspect takes on the defending champion, he’ll get an opportunity to play in one of many iconic venues.
“I have never been at Wankhede before, so I am just going ahead with all the knowledge that has been given by the other players. It’s good that we get exposed to various venues and it helps our skill sets in adapting various conditions,” he stated.
South Africa got here into the match with a 3-2 ODI collection win towards Australia and adopted it up with two early wins. However, not many anticipated the cookie to crumble so early within the match. In the T20 World Cup final yr, The Netherlands surprised South Africa within the final league match, knocking it out of the match.
This time, the shock defeat has come as a warning. “Everyone individually had the opportunity to review and re-assess. It did hurt us a lot after the game. The last time we lost to The Netherlands in 2022, it knocked us out of the World Cup, but this gives us another opportunity to rectify that…” Maharaj stated.
South Africa, too, could be hoping to stroll the discuss.
Source web site: sportstar.thehindu.com
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