Tauranga, New Zealand –South Africa’s practice this morning was preceded by a braai at the Bay Oval – a sort of transition from yesterday’s day off – back to the serious matters of cricket, with vice-captain Hashim Amla looking forward to an improved personal and team performance.
Both teams believe they’ll be better prepared having experienced the pitch here, which was the great unknown at a venue which on Tuesday hosted its first major international fixture.
“We know what the wicket is like now – we were entering the unknown a little bit on Tuesday by batting first and not knowing what a good score was,” said New Zealand’s Tim Southee, who is expected to return to the starting team for tomorrow’s second ODI after missing the first with a shoulder ailment.
JP Duminy said yesterday that a par total was probably around the 250-mark, normal for New Zealand, which means the home team wasn’t too far away on Tuesday with their 230 all out.
Of course they only got there courtesy of a 10th wicket stand of 74, something which has irked the South Africans, and is one area they’ve identified as requiring significant improvement tomorrow.
“We had an opportunity to bowl New Zealand out for under 200 and let that slip,” remarked Amla.
In pursuit they fell to 97/4, giving New Zealand a sniff of victory, but again, they were resolute and ultimately won comfortably. Amla said the adjustment batsmen must make on a pitch that will be utilised again tomorrow is actually to be patient.
“The tendency in One-Day cricket, especially since the advent of T20, is to try and bat quickly up front, which is what we all try and do, the biggest adjustment is to try and bite your tongue and try to block it out a bit.”
South Africa have a fully fit squad from which to choose – Wayne Parnell (shoulder) and Dave Miller (flu) – were both participating in training this morning, with the latter likely to return in place of Rilee Rossouw. The South Africans were mostly pleased with their efforts in the first match, and know they will be better having had the chance to dust off the cobwebs.
But the same holds true for the home team. They’re missing key players – Kane Williamson and Ross Taylor – and are carefully managing the match time of their players, particularly the bowlers such as Southee, Trent Boult and Kyle Mills.
“You want to play every game, but we also realise that we have to be smart. There’s a lot of cricket to be played this season,” Southee said
“You never like losing, especially after the cricket we showed last summer it was a disappointing way to start,” Southee said of the six-wicket defeat in the first match. “But it’s been a long time since we last played One-Day cricket and we haven’t played a lot of cricket in the last few months. So they’ll be better for the hit out.
“We are missing a couple of players but that just gives others a chance to step up and show what they are made of and hopefully you’ll see an improved side out there tomorrow.”
South Africa bring an imposing recent record in ODIs into tomorrow’s match – having lost just twice in 12 matches this year. Far from worrying that they may be peaking too soon with a World Cup on the horizon, Amla believes the importance of winning cannot be underestimated.
“There is no doubt you will have days when you won’t perform as well as you can and you may lose a game, there’ll be days where you perform well, and the other team is better and you lose,” said Amla. “We’ve won some good games in the last months, Sri Lanka was an important series and we’ve almost got the combination right in the team in terms of preparation for the World Cup. There’s some tinkering to be done, but it’s a healthy position to be in – having won a few games, it’s always better to be on the winning side.” - The Star