Ahmedabad (Gujarat) [India], February 20 : South Africa head coach Conrad Shukri Conrad has expressed excitement ahead of his team's Super Eight opener against the defending champions India in the ICC Men's T20 World Cup on Sunday, saying the team is entering the next stage with confidence after successfully navigating the group stages.
Speaking ahead of the match, the South Africa coach highlighted the shift in mindset after South Africa remained unbeaten in their Group in the ongoing T20 World Cup to qualify for the Super Eight stage.
"The first half of the group stages was the anxious bit for me. This is now the excitement," Conrad said, as quoted by ESPNcricinfo.
South Africa's head coach outlined the structure of tournament cricket, explaining that getting past the group stage is just the first step. "Tournament cricket almost has three parts to it. You've got to find a way of just getting out of that group stage. So we did that. Now you look, and you say, right, we've got India first up, and then the West Indies with some of the most entertaining players in the world, and that excites me."
Conrad also addressed the role of pressure in big matches, noting that it affects both sides. "Pressure is a big thing, but it's pressure both for them and us. I think we all talk about the pressure of playing against the top side, but we're not quite aware of what the pressures they are under," he said.
"I'm not, for one, suggesting that a guy who has three ducks in his last three matches comes under pressure for his place in his side. No," he remarked.
The player Conrad is referring to is Abhishek Sharma, who has not scored a run and also missed India's second match of the tournament through illness, according to ESPNcricinfo.
The world's number one T20I batter has not been able to get a run in the three innings he has played so far against USA, Pakistan and Netherlands, playing the latter two matches after a battle with a stomach infection that put him in the hospital and reportedly led to him losing a considerable amount of weight too. In his last eight innings, he has five ducks.
In eight innings this year, Abhishek has made 182 runs at an average of 26.00 and a strike rate of over 224, with two fifties and a best score of 84.
Head coach Conrad dismissed the overemphasis on individual player "match-ups" ahead of the team's Super Eight T20 World Cup clash against the defending champions
"The match-ups can be overstated. I'm not a big fan of it," Conrad said. "Sometimes the wickets are so good that it takes the match-ups out of the equation. If there's something in the wicket and there's a little bit of spin, then the match-up could be there for the off-spinner against the left-hander. Maybe the angle you create sometimes. By and large, I think it's slightly overstated on really good batting wickets."