PLAN: Nortje, centre, and Rabada, right. ©Samuel Shivambu/BackpagePix
Proteas bowling coach Eric Simons wants his manskappe to change their mindset from being prey to becoming hunters.
As they gear up for their World Cup opener against Sri Lanka at the Nassau County International Cricket Stadium in New York at 4.30pm today, South Africa’s bowlers know they’ll be tested.
T20 cricket is known for being a bit of a slogfest and with the recently-concluded Indian Premier League further tipping the scale in favour of those with the willow in their hands, it’s the “leathermen” that must strike back.
And of their plan to combat the batters, Simons, 63, says: “It’s an exciting time to be a bowler. Batsmen are playing with a lot of freedom and aggression – I don’t think it will be quite the same as in the IPL, the impact player made a massive difference. [But] there are still some batsmen that will play with that sort of freedom…
“The way bowlers go about tactics, there are two things, the one is the accuracy of execution and then being very smart with your tactics.
“I think that makes it an exciting time to be a bowler, to be pulling teams back to what is acceptable scores and that’s where our focus is going to be.”
With a fit-again Kagiso Rabada and an out-of-sorts Anrich Nortje ready to fire, Simons says of their plan: “There’s a subtle difference between looking at a batter’s strengths and where he wants to hit the ball and making the plan around that, as opposed to ‘I start this dance and I want to make you hit the ball in this area’.
“And that’s a far more dominant attitude and that’s the way we are talking – how can we make batters hit the ball in the areas where we want them to hit and where our protection is.”
South Africans will be hoping their team hit the ground running in Group D today, before matches against unpredictable Netherlands on Saturday, the dangerous Bangladesh (Monday, May 10) and minnows Nepal (May 15).
Related Topics: