Ken Borland

The Proteas played their first warm-up game on Monday against Afghanistan and their campaign proper begins on Saturday against Australia in Abu Dhabi. A rebuilding South African team have not generally been counted amongst the contenders for the title, with that old chestnut of their previous record at ICC events always in the background.

In six appearances in the T20 World Cup, South Africa have reached the semi-finals only twice (2009, 2014).

“I don’t like talking about baggage too much, this is a fresh challenge in front of us,” Rabada said. “The confidence levels are there and the rebuilding is going to plan. Everything that happened in the past is in the past, but we do take some confidence from this year.

“It’s just about playing now and we know that if we apply ourselves well then we can beat anyone on the day. It’s not worth talking about baggage and we are just taking it one step at a time,” Rabada said.

Rabada was a key part of the SA U19 team that won their Junior World Cup in 2014, also in the UAE, which South Africans hoped would be a breakthrough triumph in ICC events. But since then the Proteas have reached two semi-finals (one in each format) and were knocked out of the 2016 T20 and 2019 50-over event in the group stages.

“There are a lot of good memories from the U19 World Cup here and it would be great to replicate that with the senior team. It would be extremely special to win this World Cup, my biggest life achievement in sport.

“It would be one of our highest achievements in South African cricket. A World Cup is really what is missing, just that.

“We hope that we’re the generation that can bring it back home. But I don’t let that expectation affect me, I don’t see it as a burden.

“I’ve learnt to embrace it, take it in my stride. Being a leader is something I’m eager to do, the team needs leaders.

“This team wants to express to the world how good they are and we are preparing as hard as we can. We will fight tooth and nail, that’s guaranteed,” Rabada said.

The Proteas want to take young, courageous cricketers without the old baggage to the next World Cup, and much of the coming season will be dedicated to finding those players, according to the captain Faf du Plessis.

The 2018/19 season was officially launched in Centurion on Tuesday and, despite the attraction of the Test series against Pakistan, the focus of the summer will be on what happens at the end of the season – the World Cup in England.

“Our focus is not on the short-term, everything is looking ahead to the World Cup, so sometimes the team that is selected might not be the best available, but that’s how we get guys more experience ahead of our goal, the World Cup. We want to give a few guys more time and we will speed up that process now, even though our results have not been as good as we would have wanted.

“But it means we can see some young, courageous cricketers, and I believe that’s how we can win the World Cup, by losing the baggage. We don’t want the players to be limited and so mentally challenged; the mental side of things is the only hurdle we have left to conquer because we have the skills and we’ve done the planning, we’ve just lacked in mentality,” Du Plessis said on Tuesday.

The road to the World Cup includes ODIs against Zimbabwe, Pakistan and Sri Lanka at home, as well as a short tour to Australia, and Du Plessis said the matches will be used mostly to fine-tune the side mentally as well as sift through the last few pieces of the selection puzzle.

“We want to try and free up the guys mentally, so there’s no fear of failure, the players must get out there and be able to do the job, and we must equip them for that time. That extra 10-20% mentally is where we have not been as good as we could be. I’ve been to two World Cups and we’ve had different approaches in the lead-up and also mentally.

“So I’ve seen the benefits of what has worked and we will try and take from that, but I’ve also seen the bad. A few guys have shown that they are made for international cricket, they’re ready, and a few guys need more time. So we’ll probably only have a more settled team when we play Pakistan and Sri Lanka next year, then we can look more at the style of play we want for the 15-man squad,” Du Plessis said.

https://citizen.co.za/sport/south-african-sport/sa-cricket-sport/2004903/faf-proteas-want-fearless-men-without-baggage-for-world-cup/