Heinrich Klaasen thinks that despite winning a number of “scrappy games” in the opening stages of the season, South Africa is ready for the business end of the T20 World Cup in 2024.
During the group rounds, South Africa narrowly defeated Sri Lanka and the Netherlands in nerve-wracking run chases, then held off Bangladesh and Nepal with respective scores of 113 and 115. Even though they defeated USA by 18 runs on Wednesday in Antigua, it was still a close game. This was their most emphatic win to far.
Their innings of 74 off 40 balls, which supported their score of 194 for 4, was by far their greatest of the World Cup. After facing such difficult batting conditions in the early going, Klaasen, who scored 36 not out of 22 at the end, expressed that they had relished the chance to play on “a proper wicket”.
Klaasen remarked, “I thought we had a par total.” It was a solid effort for the hitters, but our bowlers were under pressure towards the conclusion of the game. More than the bowlers, the hitters needed it to get back into their swings. In America, it was really challenging, but from what I can see, the Caribbean is becoming better and better at wickets.
“We prevailed in four tenacious [group] matches. It was not attractive. In those five games thus far, our bowlers have bowled extraordinarily well. We had to make some slight adjustments to our gameplans because the hitters just needed to figure out how to scrap. We can maybe find our moods and be our true selves when things are going better. That’s the one thing going for us that is still promising.
“However, the remainder of our play, our grafting and condition-adapting skills are excellent and demonstrate the group’s maturity as well. Naturally, we’re hoping for that flawless performance, but ideally it will materialize as the competition progresses and occur when it means most.”
On Friday morning (local time), South Africa takes on England in St Lucia. The previous games in this series have been extremely high scoring: Australia chased down 181 against Scotland, Sri Lanka and West Indies both posted 200-plus totals against the Netherlands and Afghanistan, and England dominated the 181 chase against West Indies.
“The US part of the tournament has done the team a lot of good in my eyes,” Klaasen stated. We learned a lot from playing under pressure and we did a really good job at it. When things are going well, the players appear composed and aware of their strategies.
It all comes down to execution, and our death-hitting versus the US wasn’t that good, in my opinion. They bowled really well, and we want to get back to hitting our stride. With any luck, we can take advantage of England. They’re a very dangerous side, but they’ve had an uninteresting tournament with plenty of rain and games influenced by it.
“We must play our key moments better than what they do since they have a lot of match-winners. That being said, as we have seen during this World Cup, cricket is a humorous game. It would be wonderful if South Africa could win both matches and secure a berth in the semi-finals. Hopefully, we can keep up our recent success in playing excellent cricket under duress.”
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