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ICC CRICKET WORLD CUP

May 29, 2019

Faf du Plessis

Kennington, London, England, UK

Q. The anticipation of taking on the world's best at the moment in England, in the opening, obviously game of the World Cup. How are your team set up everyone?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Good morning, everyone. Corky, how is it.

Yeah, very excited. England is a tremendous cricket team. They have showed that over the last 24 months playing real good cricket, first game of the campaign. Yeah, just for me, it's just excitement. Obviously England has been the favourite, so we're going to have to play really good cricket.

But for us, it's not just the first game. It's sort of a six-week period and tomorrow is just the first step.

Q. About Dale Steyn, big loss, obviously the experience of him and being injured for this first game?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, it is a big loss to our team. We did expect it when we picked the squad. He wasn't quite, probably about 60 per cent when the squad was picked; so we anticipated for this to happen.

But yeah, Dale Steyn, a fit Dale Steyn makes our bowling attack a very, very strong one. So tomorrow will be a little bit of chopping and changing to get a balance that we think can take on England.

Q. Without Dale, in the lead up, you've been talking about how you want to out-bowl team and really aggressive bowling strategy, how does that change?
FAF DU PLESSIS: It does change. As I said, one of our X-factors, potentially we have is a really, really strong attack in terms of pace. Steyn, Rabada, Ngidi is a real, real threat in English conditions. So that changes. As I said to you guys before, that's Plan A for the World Cup in terms of our balance, what we're looking to achieve.

Now it's just a real reshuffle and looking to Plan B and C.

Q. Presumably with that reshuffle, guys like Dwaine Pretorius and Chris Morris come strongly into the conversation, and might even be competing with each other. Just on that, is it pitch conditions that sort of decide the contest between those two in terms of their bowling?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, for us, I mean, England is a team that plays very aggressively. We all know that. So for us as a leadership group, it's trying to find, how can we be most attacking and trying to get wickets. Obviously that was with Dale included but that changed now, so we'll look at set up our team to try to make sure we can get guys on the team that can get wickets.

There's no point in trying to play a defensive style of cricket against England because they have shown that they can take any biting attack on on the day. So yeah, we'll try and pick our team to try and be as positive in team selection as possible that we can be.

Q. If you can just chat about the likes of K.J. and Lungi will be making their World Cup debuts, and just the fact that there's going to be so many retirements, a handful of retirements after this World Cup. What does it represent for their careers, a crowning moment in a sense, even though they have played a lot of international cricket already?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Am I part of them? (Laughter).

Q. I didn't mention you.
FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, the young guys on our team, Ngidi, or not so young, Rabada, but obviously young in terms of his World Cup, Markham, guys like, that their experiences of World Cup cricket is winning the World Cup -- on a 19 World Cup. They are just excited to get going and get it started, and I think they will make some huge impact in this tournament. Rabada and Ngidi for us has been really, really good over the last 12 months.

Me personally, really, really excited to see the young guys, how well they are going to step up in this tournament, and then the older guys, yeah, as you said, some guys have stated that they finishing after this tournament, you know, but that's not -- that's not the focus.

For me, the focus on making sure that we can look at playing the style of cricket we want to do, and whether that guarantees success for some of the older guys or not, that's not the focus. They are here to make sure that they enjoy every day as best as possible. I think when you get a little bit older, that becomes a little bit more natural. You take the pressure off. This is something I have to do or need to do to something that I love to do.

So you go back to that younger version of yourself, so hopefully that will free some of the older guys up a little bit.

Q. Kind of similar. It's your first World Cup match as captain. How are you kind of dealing with that? Is it a big deal at all? You've been part of -- you've been captain in big matches as well before this, but first World Cup match, does it change the way you think about how you go out on the field?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Not really. As I've said, a lot of times my most enjoyable times playing cricket is when I do captain any cricket team, and especially this one.

I'm just excited that it's another opportunity for me to go and do that. You know, get my brain nice and active on the field and tactically thinking about the game all the time. I just feel that puts me in the space that I want to be playing cricket, so it's just another opportunity for me for me to do it.

Q. Andile Phehlukwayo, do you see him as most important part of that link between -- can you say that Andile is the missing link, and that he'll be a very important part in your team? And secondly, what message do you have for the people at home and have you been receiving any messages from any South Africans?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Okay. Yeah, Andi, he's stepped up in big games for us in the past. So once again, I think it will be great to see what he can do this tournament.

You know, on wickets, obviously it looks like the English conditions has been playing some really flat wickets, and his skill sets that he has with the ball in terms of these mix-ups, I think is important, especially when teams get going, so hopefully he can start the tournament well. He's playing some really good cricket. He's in form. So I'm hoping that he's that missing link that you're talking about.

And then your second part of the question, people back home. Yeah, naturally, any player on any team the day before a World Cup would be getting probably one or two more WhatsApps than normally. So for me, that's no different. It's just about making sure -- there is probably a little bit more noise around a first game; there's probably a little bit more noise because it's a World Cup.

But for me as captain, it's about making sure that we can try and put the noise to one side and just relax as much as we can, try and have fun, control the things that we can do. You know, practise hard. Practise well. Have a good culture, have a good language in our culture, and then completely release the outcome and hopefully that frees up the players to play their best cricket.

Q. What message do you have?
FAF DU PLESSIS: For the fans? Back home.

Live from cloudy England, Faf du Plessis here saying hi. Hopefully we can play some good cricket. (Laughter).

Q. You mentioned there that England, going in as favourites has a huge degree of expectation on them as hosts. How can that play into -- into your hands as a team? Is it a motivation for to you take down the hosts and favourites at the start, sort of spoil the party? Is that one of the messages? Is there an opportunity for to you make a real statement?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, I suppose they would be saying what I'd be saying. You know, whether you're favourites or not, you still have to make sure that you play some good cricket. They deservedly have got the favourites there because they are the home nation, and they have been playing, like I said before, really, really consistently good cricket.

But for me, as I also said earlier, that it's -- you're going to face so much different opposition right up to this tournament. If you get too focussed on the opposition, you can get distracted.

So it's just about really trying to stay present and in what we can control, and that's how we practise, how we get ourselves ready for games.

And then if it means on the day that we have a little bit less pressure on us to try and just go out and be free and play the way that we want to, because we are going in as underdogs, and there's not a lot of people talking about South Africa winning the World Cup; then if that releases some players on the team, then that's great.

Q. When you lose someone like Dale Steyn, who is obviously a wonderful player but has such a big presence on the field, what does that do? How does that change your role as captain? I'm sure there's a bit of a void there. Do you step into that or how do you manage that?
FAF DU PLESSIS: I think it's always crucial that whatever, good or bad, it's always important that you have someone stepping up into that. It's been happening quite a bit the last year or two on our team, so I'm used to that. There's always a lot of talk about stuff that's not relevant to the team itself, 80, 90 per cent of the time being at the forefront of that.

So I'm used to making sure that you get the guys in a different direction and get them pulling to one direction together as a team.

Q. If you could just talk a bit about the group's mental approach to this tournament, a lot's been said about flying under the radar and focussing on enjoying the cricket mand not putting too much pressure on the fact that it's a World Cup. As you go along, do you think that mind-set is going to be more difficult to maintain as you go from big game to big game to big game?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, as we've been speaking quite a bit about that, I think the focus for us is making sure that we really have a good time. As I said earlier, that perhaps comes with age, and being to one or two of these events before is that you do treat these events as more important or bigger games than you normally do.

I think in that lies a recipe for us that we shouldn't follow. It's a case of making sure that we have a really good time together, because that's when you are most relaxed. When you are intense and desperate, I think that's when you make mistakes.

So for us, it's trying to make sure that we don't go too high or too low when we're winning or losing. We just have, you know, quite a calm intensity in our dressing room in terms of the way that we speak. If we win tomorrow against England, that won't be a "we've just won the World Cup." We'll treat it exactly the same as if we lose tomorrow. I think it's really important for us as a group to have the same outlook for the whole tournament.

Q. We are expecting some big scores. There's a lot of talk about maybe even 500 or something like that. What are you looking forward to in terms of big runs, and do you prefer high-scoring games or low-scoring ones?
FAF DU PLESSIS: As a batter I'm just looking forward to getting started on these wickets. It is nice to bat on. But yeah, what I think every ground that you play on, similar to rest of the world, you've got to make sure that you first see what the conditions is like and then make your game plan from there to just come out and think, today we're going to score 500 and to start swinging from the boots, then it's probably not going to be the best way to go.

You know, overhead conditions does play a role sometimes in England. You know, we know that the first hour in a morning start games generally here, there's a better spice in the wicket and the ball moves around a little bit and then it gets much better.

So yeah, for me, I'm not focussed on 500 as a score. The way we've been trying to play the last year, just trying to be a little bit more positive, more aggressive and I think you've seen that in our style of play. So just excited to get going.

Q. You're playing England tomorrow and obviously all the talk is about their batters and how strong they are, but you've also got Kagiso Rabada, who is obviously one of the best fast bowlers in the world. When gets standing on top of his mark, you telling him to have a real crack or what's the plan?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, KG, to be a talent like he is, he doesn't need any guidance from me. I can try and speak to him a little bit from a tactical point of view but I certainly am not trying to tell him how to bowl. He knows much more than I do.

It's just about letting him free. He's a world-class athlete and what people like him does best is they want a stage to perform, and this World Cup will be a stage for KG to once again show the world what kind of bowler he is.

Q. You spoke about how Dale was your Plan A. Coming into the tournament, was Hash your Plan A, and how relieved are you about his two recent scores?
FAF DU PLESSIS: There's a lot of clicking there (laughter).

Yeah, Hash, as I said before, it's important to have form. Hash would been saying to you that in the last year that he perhaps hadn't scored the runs he would have liked.

But once again, that's in the past now and Hash has trained hard over the -- when everyone was at the IPL, trained hard with Dale Benkenstein and definitely looking really good in the first two warmup games, looking like the Hash that we know. He loves batting in England.

Yeah, he's certainly back to where we wanted him to be, so that's great for us as a team.

Q. You are part of a couple of tournaments, you said these tournaments are important, therefore, you look at them differently. There was desperation, you talked about. A lot of conversation this time is centered around other teams, England, India, South Africa perhaps not as much in that conversation. Does that help with that desperation, that pressure, that you guys are not that much in the conversation?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, as I said earlier, whether we come into this tournament as favourites or as underdogs, you still have to go out on the park and play cricket and perform to win a World Cup.

For me, that's not as much the emphasis. It's more the outlook that we've been trying to have as a team and trying to get over that hurdle, and as I said before in interviews, you know, learning from myself that I can speak of in the past, you perhaps feel like you have to do more. You know, you have to be a Superman on the day. You're trying to win a World Cup.

For me, that's not what we need to do. We are a good cricket team. Our results has proven that. We need to stay present in the fact that what we have got on our team is good enough to beat any team on the day and trust that, not go away thinking that you need to do -- today I need to be the man that scores 180 or 60 balls because that doesn't give us results.

So for me, it's about making sure the team, as I said, if we can be just nice and calm and positive -- and even if we make mistakes, to make sure that we completely forget about that mistake and come back into the present and focus on what's ahead.

Q. A couple of years back, you had said: "I used to be a very macho guy and that my language was filthy. Even in IPL I would sit on the back of the bus and try to be cool, and now I don't do that anymore. I don't want to be that kind of guy." So what brought this change? Was it captaincy and why you don't want to be cool? (Laughter)
FAF DU PLESSIS: That is an interesting quote. Hopefully I'm still cool. I'm still trying to be, with the youngsters on the team, trying to -- my hair, I used gel this morning. Trying to fit in with the cool kids.

Like anyone sitting here today, whether you're playing cricket or in business or in life or in sport, it's no different. You know, the older you get, the wiser you get. You know, being a father now, everything gets put into perspective.

Cricket is a very important aspect of all of our lives, but it's not everything. You know, life, there's a lot more bigger things than winning and losing games of cricket. And that, perhaps, has changed for me. The fact that I'm no longer desperate; I want to win cricket games but I don't need to win them.

I think as a team, hopefully that can filter through, because no one taught me that four, five years ago, playing in these events, and hopefully that gives the guys on the rest of the team just a little bit more of a relaxedness to them; that the absolute worst-case scenario, you don't make it, and that's okay, life will go on. And if players are a little bit more free, and can just play their best version of themselves, then that's great. That's all I'm looking for.

Q. There's been an awful lot of talk about England's batting, but surely their bowling attack should also be part of the conversation?
FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, you don't win just games with a bat. Obviously you've got to defend and get wickets, as well.

So they are all-around a very good team and that's why they their win ratio has been very good.

Obviously adding Arch on to the team is a different dynamic. Teams that have played against him, perhaps just a few guys in the IPL; so the batters will have to take a few balls just to get used to his action. He is a little bit different in terms of quite a slow-ish run-up and very quick arm action.

Yeah, their bowling will be just as important. They have got wicket-takers, and they're spinners does well in these conditions. But their biggest asset is the fact that they are very balanced and they have got a very long batting lineup. I don't think there are any other teams in the world where you have all your bowlers that can come in and score runs at the end. So they are more a balance; that is their real strength.

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