CRICKETING MAESTRO
Proteas have a chance to cement place in the semis with victory against Pakistan
BALL SKILLS: Proteas skipper AB de Villiers displays his version of juggling during the South African team’s net session in Edgbaston yesterday. The team play Pakistan in a crucial pool match today.
YOU will not find Matthew Killingsworth’s name among those involved in the Champions Trophy match between South Africa and Pakistan at Edgbaston today. Why would you? Killingsworth has a PhD in psychology from Harvard University and, according to his online biography, studies “the nature and causes of human happiness”.
Cricket causes happiness in billions around the world, but that is different.
Even so, some will see a connection between Killingsworth repeatedly exhorting his followers to stay in the moment and the use of exactly that phrase by JP Duminy and Wayne Parnell in separate conversations with reporters in the past few days.
What is it all about, AB de Villiers?
“I wouldn’t say it’s part of team tactics,” De Villiers said yesterday.
“It’s just an awareness of not thinking of the past or the future, as simple as that. If we live in the past there’s lots of scars that we can think of, lots of bad experiences, some good ones as well.
“If you try and touch on the future, it’s something we can’t control as yet.
“So it’s just wise to try and stay in the moment with what you’re confronted with at the time. It’s pretty simple.
“It’s just a little saying that I feel is quite powerful for us, to focus on the very next ball and not, well, not the very next ball but the one that you’re actually dealing with at that moment, and not trying to think of how you’re going to finish your over or the few boundaries you just went for.
“Everybody has the opportunity to influence the game, and that’s the idea behind it.”
De Villiers said he had not been absorbing Killingsworth’s thinking, but perhaps it inadvertently helped South Africa beat Sri Lanka by 96 runs in their first match of the tournament at The Oval in London on Saturday.
South Africa’s performance was far from flawless, but they dealt with situations as they arose by, yes, staying in the moment. They achieved, in a word, happiness. A dearth of happiness was evident at the media conference that followed India’s 124-run thrashing of Pakistan at Edgbaston on Sunday.
“That’s a total insult to say we’re playing even worse,” Pakistan coach Mickey Arthur railed at the thinly-veiled accusation that he was the problem. “If you have a look at our records over the last year, we’ve won two series.
“We’ve got ourselves from nine to number eight [in the rankings] and our brand of cricket has changed.”
Arthur was not alone in his exasperation at the Pakistani media, whose questions can veer from the inane to the asinine.
After being reminded that “the last time you met Pakistan in a World Cup they got the better of you” and that “a lot of people are wanting South Africa to win a big tournament”, De Villiers was asked, “So how much pressure is there?” “No pressure,” De Villiers said. “The last time we played them in the Champions Trophy we got the better of them at this same ground.”
That was in 2013, when South Africa dismissed Pakistan for 167 to win by 67 runs.
So incensed were passionate supporters here in the United Kingdom’s most Asian city, that they booed Misbah-ul-Haq after his post-match interview – despite the fact that he had scored 55.
Those fans do not have Misbah to kick around any more – he is retired, as has Younis Khan–- and Wahab Riaz has been ruled out of the rest of this year’s tournament with an ankle injury.
All of which will be part of the narrative of today’s match, in which victory for South Africa will translate into a giant leap towards the semifinals.
Conversely, Pakistan must win to retain serious hopes of staying in the running.
It’s just wise to try and stay in the moment with what you’re confronted with at the time. It’s pretty simple