South Africa continued its astonishing run in the ongoing ICC Men's Cricket World Cup with a huge 190-run win over New Zealand, an opposition against whom it won the last time way back in Birmingham during the 1999 edition of the tournament.
With the Proteas now on top of the points table, Rassie van der Dussen, who scored his second hundred of the competition during the match, believes that the team’s great run in the competition has come due to focusing only on what is there in front of them and their style of play.
“What we've done really well is in this campaign is we're really just focusing on what we want to do and how we want to play it. In our match review meetings, we keep looking at the numbers with the coaches and so far in this tournament, by most metrics, we're stacking up pretty well.”
“So, at the end of the day, it's almost irrelevant who's in front of you. We know if we play the way we want to play and execute how we want to and take the correct options, especially under pressure, then the result is a byproduct of that,” said van der Dussen in the post-match press conference.
At Pune, van der Dussen made 133 while opener Quinton de Kock scored 114 while sharing a stand of 200 runs for the second wicket to set the base for South Africa making a mammoth 357/4. De Kock now has four centuries in the tournament and is leading the run charts with 545 runs, with van der Dussen saying the opener is having a determined look.
“It's been so good to have Quinny. He has a determination about him that I haven't seen in a very long time. He's ploughing back into the team in all aspects, in the bowling meetings, in the batting meetings, being one of our senior guys. The guys really feed off him.”
“He's one of my favourite guys to bat with. He really guided me through my innings today. At times I was under pressure and I was asking him about a few options and just to sort of soundboard with him out in the middle. He's such a cool and calm guy out there, thinks so clearly.”
“It was just great to bat with him. But he's been brilliant in the last few weeks. Like I said, very determined. He's not all talky - he does it out on the field. That's really inspirational for us as a team and the rest of the guys on the team to see a guy like that really come up with a good,” he added.
Next up for South Africa will be facing hosts’ India at the Eden Gardens in Kolkata on Sunday, with the Proteas set to face their biggest challenge in the tournament so far. Van der Dussen feels if the Proteas get all things right, then the result will take care of itself.
“Playing India in India is a massive event. They've been playing really well. A lot of experience in their team. They've got all bases covered, brilliant bowling attack and obviously the batting as well. But again, like I said, we'll go into that game knowing that if we do the things well that we want to do, we'll be in a really strong position.”
“The challenge is to under pressure, to stay with that, and that's what we'll look to do. But we've played them here before and we've beaten them here before. So, in a sense, it's, even though it's a World Cup, it's not really too much different. We won't be looking at that too much,” he concluded.