Bleary-eyed Proteas wary of underestimating unheralded Dutch

While the Dutch squad enjoyed pizza night at their hotel, the Proteas had a late evening in Dharamshala watching their rugby compadres successfully storm the fields of France.

“I’m still trying to wake up from the late night,” said Temba Bavuma, who has already had one nodding-off episode at the World Cup. Describing the intensity of what they’d watched from Paris — broadcast at about midnight in India — Bavuma said his side would draw inspiration from the Springboks’ performance.   

Unlike the Rugby World Cup, cricket’s equivalent has yet to see a match of high intensity and closeness of the sort seen in the quarterfinals in France. 

The tournament’s schedule doesn’t allow for any jeopardy in the first couple of weeks, with teams like England and Australia, already having suffered two defeats, still with their play-off destiny very much in their own hands. 

Nevertheless, Afghanistan’s upset of the world champions on Sunday would have made an impression in both South Africa and the Netherlands’ camps. The Dutch will undoubtedly draw confidence from the performance of a fellow “minnow”, while South Africa will be wary of not producing their sharpest play at the HPCA Stadium on Tuesday. 

Not that Bavuma needed reminding, but he got some anyway at his prematch media engagement, about the Dutch’s triumph in the T20 World Cup last year. South Africa needed to win that final group match to qualify for the semifinals but fell apart alarmingly in one of the great shocks of that competition.

Bavuma, however, had a reminder of his own for members of the fourth estate.

“This is a different format, it asks different questions in terms of your skills and being able to do your skills for a longer period of time. I think that’s something we all need to appreciate,” he said.

“The last time we played the Netherlands was back home in South Africa [earlier this year]. We obviously needed those points to qualify for the World Cup and our victories there were emphatic in my view.”

The players have all made a concerted effort to leave what happened in past World Cup disappointments behind them. So while they’ve drawn confidence from two dominant performances against Sri Lanka and Australia, those two matches have otherwise been forgotten.

“The past is the past. The only thing you can do is learn from it and that’s what we are doing; learning whatever lessons there have been and just focus specifically on what is in front of us,” head coach Rob Walter said of the mental approach.

What does await is a tricky outfield at the HPCA Stadium, situated in the foothills of the Himalayas. Players from England, Bangladesh and Afghanistan last week complained about the sandy outfield, with bowlers adjusting their run-ups and fielders the way they move with diving and sliding best avoided. 

“We did have a fielding practice last night and to be honest it didn’t play as bad as it looked,” Bavuma said.

“We have spoken about trying to be a bit more cautious, maybe changing your diving technique but I don’t know how easy that is to do when you are in the heat of the moment.”

The forecast for rain on Tuesday, at least for a few hours, will add to the jeopardy but otherwise Bavuma reiterated the importance of maintaining the intensity and focus from the first two matches.

“There’s no complacency or talk of taking the game for granted. We still respect the opposition — not just the Netherlands, but any opposition that you come up against at international level.

“We’ll be coming into the game with the same mindset that we had against Sri Lanka and against Australia.”