Ken Borland

When a South African leader talks about finding an extra 5% it’s normally the Minister of Finance trying to balance the books in a time of constrained fiscus, but Proteas captain Temba Bavuma admitted on Friday that this is what his team will need to do to beat England in Sharjah and maintain their hopes of qualifying for the T20 World Cup semi-finals.

Depending on Australia’s margin of victory or defeat against the West Indies in Saturday’s earlier game in Abu Dhabi, South Africa could advance to the semi-finals even if they lose narrowly to England or could still be knocked out even if they beat the favourites.

Bavuma said the Proteas’ focus was simply on winning, and to do that they needed to be at their best on Saturday.

“We need to play our best cricket tomorrow and our first port of call is the win. Although our cricket has been good so far, we need to find a way to add an extra 5% in all departments,” Bavuma said.

“England have had the better of us lately, so we have to be at our best against them. We can’t leave it to individuals, we can’t rely on individual brilliance, it’s all about us as a team.

“We want to show the same character we have done and fight to the end. Every game we have tailored our strategy according to the opposition and England are obviously a very good team.

“So we will come up with plans that speak to England’s strengths and weaknesses, but mentally our approach should not be any different. The players and management have been through a lot and we have grown as a team,” Bavuma said.

Bavuma may be a playful character out of the spotlight, but he is clearly taking the responsibility of leading the national team at a World Cup most seriously. He is also extremely diligent about fulfilling his batting role, over which there has been much chatter recently. His strike-rate of 108.33 has been a particular focus, as was his run-a-ball innings of 46 against Sri Lanka the last time they played in Sharjah.

“If you look at conditions, they have not been freeflowing and you can’t just come in and hit the first ball out of the middle of the bat. We’ve really had to graft as a batting unit.

“I feel I can do a role up front or in the middle to hold the game and allow the big-hitters to get into the game. We’ve seen that’s worked in this World Cup, we feel it’s what’s best and we back it.

“We really do know now after the Sri Lanka game that the pitch in Sharjah will be on the low side. In terms of our batting, we took the game quite deep and what we have learnt is that we should have pulled the trigger a bit earlier,” Bavuma said.

People sometimes like to think of T20 cricket as being as complicated a strategic game as, say, backgammon, but for David Miller, the Proteas need to keep it as simple as possible in their crunch World Cup game against England in Sharjah on Saturday.

Of course South Africa have worked hard on implementing the right tactics against the tournament favourites, but Miller said the team, since bouncing back from their loss to Australia in their opening match, have broken their play down into small bits.

“We’ve bounced back from the loss and been really good in the last three games,” Miller said. “We have a blueprint that we are striving to perfect, and although there has been huge growth, we are still learning.

“It’s a massive game for us but we mustn’t be looking at the end result. We have to stick to our processes, take it ball-by-ball, over-by over. It’s a big cliché, but we have to do that.

“We need to be clear in our planning and preparation against England, we want to simplify what we have to do, and it’s important to really enjoy ourselves out there as well,” Miller said.

While South Africa have certainly not cured all their batting issues after some ham-fisted efforts in recent times, to have Miller back in peak form after injury is a massive bonus and the successive sixes he smoked in the final over to beat Sri Lanka will live long in the memory.

Top-level sport only loans its competitors confidence depending on the vagaries of their results, but the 32-year-old left-hander said the Proteas currently feel like they are riding a wave, having not only won consistently over the last six months but also, and certainly not coincidentally, having kept the same squad of players together.

“We’re nice and focused and ready for the next game, the team is in a good space and feeling refreshed. We’ve had a similar squad for the last six months and we’ve built up a really nice bond.

“We’re finding ways to win matches and that makes us really chuffed. We’ve won 12 of our last 14 games and that has definitely given us confidence going into this must-win match.

“In those tight moments in a game, you grab hold of every bit of confidence that you can. Winning does not necessarily have to be pretty – some of our games have been clinical and smooth, and some we still won when our performance was neither here nor there.

“We’ve happened to win one or two close games now, and hopefully that confidence, momentum and growth can keep going. Having the same squad means that we’ve learnt how to play with each other, what makes your team-mates tick,” Miller said.

England are the undisputed No.1 side at the T20 World Cup, Allan Donald agrees, but the Free State Knights coach and former South African pace ace says it is crucial that the Proteas do not respect them too much when they meet in their vital match in Sharjah on Sunday.

Despite South Africa’s recent fine form in T20 cricket, they have lost their last five games against England and only scraped to victory by one run courtesy of an amazing final over by Lungi Ngidi in the sixth match. In fact, in their last 10 meetings, the Proteas have won just twice, the other win being by three runs at Taunton in 2017.

But Donald, one of the most fiery and greatest fast bowlers the game has seen, said on Wednesday that the first thing South Africa have to bring on Saturday is attitude.

“England are the No.1 side, they are a serious cricket team that has every base covered,” Donald told The Citizen. “The Proteas are going to have to play out of their boots and show a lot of courage.

“They need to be really aggressive, especially with the ball, and Keshav Maharaj and Tabraiz Shamsi are two damn good spinners who will definitely come into it as well.

“The bowlers are going to have to use a lot of pace-off deliveries and use a lot of game-smarts. They’re going to have to bowl with their heads and their match-ups need to be spot-on.

“But the most important thing is that they don’t take a backward step, they must not respect England too much. If they play with that same passion they showed when they beat Sri Lanka, then they could turn them over. It’s definitely possible if they don’t respect England too much,” Donald said.

It has been an extremely challenging year for the Proteas, with tough results against Pakistan and then bubbles in the West Indies, Ireland, Sri Lanka and now the UAE to negotiate. Never mind all the off-field dramas of SJN revelations and Board directives. They were not given much chance of contending at this World Cup, but they are still in the running and they have proven their tenacity.

“They have scrapped away. They are in a bloody tough group but they have found something, as a team they are a bunch of scrappers. If they can show the same courage and passion then it won’t matter how much England bring.

“England are going to play like favourites, but the Proteas have got a bit to work with and they’ll need to dig deep. But the thing about 20/20 cricket is that you’re never out of the game.

“The passion I saw after they beat Sri Lanka, the way David Miller and KG Rabada celebrated, you could see what it meant to the team. They have found a way and gained some self-belief, and they can take that positivity and the Bangladesh win into the England game,” Donald said.

“You never really know how a pitch is going to play,” Kagiso Rabada said, “but we had an idea from the warm-up that it would favour the seamers and bowled accordingly.”

And brilliantly.

South Africa bundled Bangladesh out for just 84 in their T20 World Cup match in Abu Dhabi on Tuesday, a total they then chased down with six wickets in hand and 39 balls to spare to significantly boost their nett run-rate.

Rabada led the way with an outstanding display that brought him career-best figures of 3/20. On a pitch that almost demanded Test-style bowling, he was bang on the mark with both his lengths and skills from the outset.

“There was a lot of grass on the pitch and a bit of zip, as well as being a bit two-paced. We learnt from the Australia game here and we also noticed a bit of swing in the warm-up,” Rabada said after the win.

“You never really know how a pitch is going to play, but we had an idea that it would favour the seamers and we bowled accordingly. In my three overs up front there was a bit of bounce, seam movement and swing.

“So conditions were in my favour and you just try to get the ball in the right places. Anrich Nortje [3.2-0-8-3] is also bowling pretty rapidly at the moment and every bowler that came on stuck to the game-plan and got us into an even stronger position,” Rabada said.

South Africa also know full well that their semi-finals qualification could come down to nett run-rate and they used the small target as an opportunity to boost that figure to more than one run per over better than rivals Australia: 0.742 to -0.627.

After a rocky start, they won in the 14^th over largely thanks to Temba Bavuma’s quickfire 31 not out off 28 balls. Rabada said criticism of the captain has been ill-informed.

“There’s nothing more to say about Temba, the results are there. You are always going to have critics and we make peace with that, we take the good with the bad.

“You can’t control what is said outside the game, but we probably put more pressure on ourselves than the public do.

“Obviously we chatted at halfway about nett run-rate and we wanted to try and finish the chase as early as possible. There was a clear instruction to finish before 15 overs, we did that and we are happy,” Rabada said.