Proteas keen for more of same
STUNNING seaside views, delightful beachside restaurants and nights spent watching the NBA finals have provided sufficient distraction for the players of the three teams participating in the triangular series in the Caribbean.
Wayne Parnell has certainly enjoyed the aggression and drive of basketball superstar Lebron James, who has dragged his Cleveland Cavaliers team from the depths of despair in the NBA finals to the brink of an unlikely triumph.
“Well well. @KingJames brought the (fire). Things are going to be lit in #Game7 of the #NBA Finals. Let’s go!!” Parnell tweeted.
Sadly for Parnell, unless there is rain in Bridgetown tomorrow evening or one of South Africa or Australia achieve a blow-out win at the Kensington Oval, he is likely to miss the first half of game seven of the NBA finals.
Although lacking the razzmatazz of one of the biggest events on the American sporting calendar, South Africa’s match against Australia in Bridgetown tomorrow is nevertheless an important one in the context of a competition in which all three teams are desperately seeking consistency.
South Africa will be hoping that after their best all-round performance of the tournament against the West Indies on Wednesday, they can maintain that momentum during the next week.
The batting, led by a fine opening stand between Hashim Amla and Quinton de Kock, was certainly the best it has been in the past fortnight. Amla and De Kock provided a solid platform from which Chris Morris and Faf du Plessis could stage a late assault. The Proteas had struggled to close out the innings, and the match, in their previous game against Australia, but against the West Indies South Africa smashed 105 runs in the last 10 overs, putting the match out of reach of Jason Holder’s side.
The big score allowed spinners Imran Tahir and Tabraiz Shamsi greater freedom to attack, and that is a plan that the players will want to follow against the world champions tomorrow.
Australia’s goals are similar to South Africa’s. Consistency has been hard to find, but Steve Smith’s group are nothing if not tournament savvy, and they know that the next two matches provide an opportunity to secure a spot in next Sunday’s final.
Australia’s elegant lefthander Usman Khawaja said: “We’ve got two games left and then hopefully a final, and at the end of the day you just want to get into a final, it doesn’t matter how you get there.
“I still think we are playing some really good cricket… we’ve shown glimpses of (good form) but from one game to the next we haven’t been able to bring it together, which is one of the things we really want to do. We want to be consistent… we want to take it and build that consistency over a long period of time.”
The Australians have had some time off in Bridgetown after their defeat earlier in the week to the West Indies in St Kitts. They had a tough training session on Thursday, where they focused entirely on fielding – a punishment session of sorts from stand-in coach Justin Langer after a laboured performance in that discipline against the West Indies, when Khawaja dropped two catches.
“Obviously it’s a big part of cricket – a big part of what we do well,” he said. “If we’re fielding well, we usually win games, so it’s quite important. I’m not the first person to drop a catch. It happens. You move on as quickly as possible.”