South Africa to use Springboks World Cup rugby win as inspiration

• We’ve got a lot of guys that have been in this situation before – Pat Cummins
• Australia takes on South Africa in second World Cup semi-final today

Australian Captain Pat Cummins

South African Captain Temba Bavuma

South Africa who has never been in a Cricket World Cup final since their re-entry to international cricket in 1992 will draw inspiration from their rugby team Springboks’ win in the World Cup when they confront five-times winner Australia in the second semi-finals at Eden Gardens, Kolkata today.

“I think to a large degree we look at them in awe, the Springboks and how they’ve gone about their back-to-back wins within the World Cup,” said South African skipper Temba Bavuma. “Obviously, the way they won it this year with the knockout games being quite close and again how that resilience, how that do or die attitude came through. That’s what we’ve been speaking about as a team. When the crunch moment comes, when the pressure moments come, we come together as a team and we find a way to get over the line.”

“We also accept that it’s for us to control what we can control, what our story is within the Proteas. We know what we’d like to look like. We want to be there on 19 November, but for us to do that we have got to focus and deal with tomorrow as best as we can.”

Compared to South African teams of the previous years this side seems to have all the ingredients to go right to the top.

“The way we’ve performed as a team it’s obviously created a lot of positive sentiments but obviously high expectations. A lot of people believe that this could be the year that we see ourselves within the final. As a team, individually we’d like nothing better than that,” said Bavuma.

“But we also respect the game of cricket. You know, we’re not coming up against a mickey mouse team. Australia has a lot of experience and confidence in knockout games like this, so we’ve got to respect that. I’d hate to say that we deserve to go through because of the way we played our cricket. I don’t think that’s the way things go. There are only two guys in this group that have gone into a semi-final, Quinton (de Kock), and David Miller, so there’s not a lot of experience from all the other guys. There’s a sense of calmness within the team and obviously the normal level of anxiety that you would expect of going into the game tomorrow. But I think we’ll take a lot of confidence with our performances up until this point.”

Bavuma is struggling with a hamstring injury, but he is determined to play. “Physically I feel alright. Obviously not 100%. So obviously this day becomes important in terms of decisions about tomorrow. I’m quite confident, but I mean, it’s not a unilateral decision that will be made.”

Australia returns to the ground where Allan Border’s men won the cricket World Cup in 1987 beating England in the final. In that tournament Australia’s success was largely based on the starts their opening batsmen Geoff Marsh and David Boon gave them.

Thirty-six years later, one of Marsh’s sons Mitch Marsh is making the headlines as a top order batsman in the Australian line up. 

“We’ve got a great opening pair in Travis (Head) and Davey (David Warner). Trav obviously missed the first half of the tournament due to injury, but in that New Zealand match, you saw the way they took the game away from them in basically the first 10 overs. That’s how we want to play,” said Australian Captain Pat Cummins. “Mitch Marsh, showed the last time what he can do at the top of the order, albeit at number three. So, yeah, really, pumped with how the batting line-ups are functioning at the moment.”

South Africa had the better of Australia in the league stage but they have a very poor record against Australia in the semi-finals.

“I don’t think it counts for too much. Obviously, you start from scratch every time you play. They’re a team we’ve played quite a lot and know quite well. This week it’s probably going to be quite different to the South African series we played against them a couple of months ago,” said Cummins.

“What helps us is we’ve got a lot of guys that have been in this situation before, that have won one-day World Cup, T20 World Cup, and various other tournaments in big moments. That really helps. You can draw on that in the middle of the contest. In terms of the wicket, it does look like it’s probably going to spin a bit more than some of the other wickets which again, is the same for both teams.” – (ST)