Domingo to get thinking cap on
COACH: WE’LL HAVE TO TAKE THAT DEFEAT ON THE CHIN
Proteas mentor backs struggling AB to come good.
Proteas coach Russell Domingo backed captain AB de Villiers to bounce back from his poor start in the Champions Trophy. De Villiers made just four in South Africa’s opening match against Sri Lanka after which he made the first first-ball duck of his one-day international career in the loss against Pakistan at Edgbaston on Wednesday.
On top of his poor form, De Villiers is also nursing a slight hamstring injury and it’s not a forgone conclusion that he’ll be fit to take on India in must-win match at The Oval tomorrow.
On a question of whether he’s concerned about De Villiers, Domingo said: “No, not at all.
“He’s a quality player. Everybody gets a first-baller. It’s just taken him 200 games, I suppose, there’s always going to be question marks. I have no concerns about AB de Villiers.’’
The captain himself also downplayed the injury as a “little tweak”.
“I don’t think it’s too serious,” he told Sky Sports.
Domingo confirmed he’ll have a long, hard look at the team selection going into the crucial match against India. South Africa’s top order failed miserably before David Miller’s unbeaten 75 helped them to a below-par 219/8. With the exception of Morne Morkel (3/18), the Proteas’ bowlers also were nowhere near as effective as their Pakistani counterparts, who set up the 19-run (Duckworth/ Lewis) win.
“I’ll have to sit with the selectors, there’s no doubt about that,’’ said Domingo.
“We always pick what we think is our best 11 on the day and pretty much dependent on conditions. So we’ll sit down closer to the time with the selectors and come up with what we feel is the strongest 11 on those particular conditions.’’
Domingo downplayed the pressure on the Proteas to perform at big tournaments and said that it wasn’t a contributing factor in their defeat to Pakistan.
“There’s nothing we can do about it. It’s outside of what we can control,’’ said Domingo.
“We haven’t played good cricket today (Wednesday). We have to take that on the chin and acknowledge that our performance is not as good as what we can put together. So we have some thinking to do and planning to do going into Sunday’s game.”