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ICC CRICKET WORLD CUPJune 2, 2019Faf du PlessisKennington, London, England, UK Bangladesh - 330/6, South Africa - 309/8 DR. MOHAMMED MOOSAJEE: Good evening, everybody. First, we'll talk about Lungi Ngidi. He sustained sharp discomfort in his left hamstring after bowling the fourth over today. He came off. He was assessed and clinically we felt that he had a left hamstring strain. We decided not to let him go out there and bowl any further in this match. So currently, it probably means that he'll be out for about a week to ten days, but we'll have scans done tomorrow. The plan will be probably to get him ready for the West Indies match. The other person we need to talk about is Hashim Amla. During the last match, he sustained a blow to the to the helmet. When he came off the field he was assessed. There were concussion assessment tests done as well as various computerised assessments done. Initially the results were what we call inconclusive, or equivocal. Repeat tests were done about an hour, one and a half hours later, which were much clearer than the ones before, and that's why the decision was made to let him go out there and bat. Subsequent to the match, the next day, he felt some symptoms and there for as a precaution, we decided to rest him from this game. The plan is to get him ready for the match against India on Wednesday in Southampton. Q. Dale Steyn, how is he going? DR. MOHAMMED MOOSAJEE: Dale Steyn, as we said before we left South Africa, that it's very much watching his progress, almost the plan was always to try to get him ready for the India or the West Indies game. So he's making decent progress and he's out there bowling right now. We'll make a call before the India game as to where he is currently. Q. If you can try and explain that, hell of a disappointing result for you guys. FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, extremely disappointed. I mean, gutted to say that, you know, all formats of our game at the moment is just not firing. To blame bad luck is not an option for me. You know, with Hash the previous game and Lungi today, I still think you have to find a way to make sure that you put in performances, and we are just off in most areas. We are doing some good things during games, but we are not putting it together over 80 per cent of the time. Yeah, so that last five overs, I think was crucial for them. I saw towards the end that we were on the same par score as them at 45, and to go for that many in the last five wasn't great. And then with the bat, once again, we looked good. We did some good things. But myself included, you know, you need to go through and score 100s. That's what's going to win you matches, not 30s and 40s. Q. Ahead of the tournament, much was made of the opening attack, opening bowlers, how you're going to look to be aggressive and pepper the guys with bounces. How would you assess the way Lungi and Kagiso went today and do you think perhaps you weren't aggressive enough with your lengths? FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah that, was our plan. Our plan was to try in both the England game and this game, try and make sure that we target them with aggressive bowling. But you know, like I said, we weren't at our best, and the opening bowlers would be the first to put their hand up to say that didn't execute on our skills today, and that went right through the innings. I thought there was a lot of loose shots, especially on the cutting side today. There was a lot of width that was given. It's just at the moment, we're just off, in all facets of it, and it's not good enough. That's why any team in this World Cup can beat any team. It's just the way that it's set up. Today Bangladesh batted really well. I have to give it to them. They paced their innings very, very good. They showed us how to set up a big score, and we did signs of it, but not full on enough. There was bigger partnerships in their camp, yeah, and that's why they were 30 runs better than us today. Q. What did you learn about your team today, and what's the one thing you can do to begin to turn these defeats into wins? FAF DU PLESSIS: Great question. Look, it didn't go according to plan. We spoke a lot about before the game, trying to be aggressive in using that first hour, and there was a lot of talk about the toss, what we wanted to do. Use our four-seamers and pace that we wanted to do, but obviously then Lungi got injured and that changed completely. Now all of a sudden, as captain, I have to bowl 15 to 20 overs of medium to slow or spin or bowling, and then obviously then it changes completely. So then you need to bowl the team out in order to make sure that you don't have to chase a big score. But the nature of subcontinent teams is that they do get a big score on the board, they can squeeze you when they have runs on the board, and that's exactly what happened. When they got 330, you know, they were just a couple of wickets away from bossing the game. I thought it was a really good wicket. I didn't think it changed that much. I just think that we weren't good enough in all three formats. They bowled good yorkers towards the end. They showed how us how to do that over a five-over period, and in the middle, I have got some experience with Shakib. He was really good today, just batting really good areas. We were close with the bat, but I do think 350 was 20 runs too many. Q. How difficult it is managing your team with so many injuries building by the day? How difficult does it get in World Cup? FAF DU PLESSIS: You know, any captain would say that it's not easy, but I mean, I can't complain about it. That's not going to change anything. I have to find a way. The coaching staff, the team, has to find a way. It's not going for us from an injuries point of view. As I said many times, our Plan A was to have all our fast bowlers bowling at the same time, and then we do have a very good bowling attack. To lose one, then you become an okay bowling attack, and now to lose two, there's pressure on our bowling attacks, so now it changes completely the mix of how we set our team up. It was never part of the plan, but that's life. You've got to roll with the punches. Q. Today in the middle overs of Bangladesh's innings, you guys looked flat in the field. This whole philosophy and psychological plan to say it's not the end of the world if we don't win the World Cup, can that have a negative effect? Do you guys care at all about how you come across to the fans? FAF DU PLESSIS: I think that happens naturally when you are in a bad position in the game. I've played a lot of cricket, and every single team that I play for around the world, it's the same effect. Once a partnership starts developing; once that you find in the field that things are not going your way, the natural thing that happens to players is they fall off a little bit, they push -- their shoulders drop a little bit. Their body language is not as strong. That's not this team, I promise you that happens in every single team. And there's always conversations around how long and how well you can keep doing that, but that's what happened today. Bangladesh batted and put our bowlers under pressure, and naturally I think the fielders were -- Lungi's injury had an impact psychologically on some of the guys, even though they weren't thinking about it. So for us, the talking in the middle was still, you know, make sure we stay fighting. We are one wicket away from restricting them to a good total. But naturally, I can speak as much about it from my point of view as I want, but it naturally happens to fielders, especially when they go towards the boundaries and there's not a lot of balls to go to them. That's the natural thing that happens when you're feeling under the pump as a team. Q. Again, coming back to that Plan A, Plan A seemed like a really good plan, three fast bowlers. When that doesn't work, do you feel like your side is able to win cricket matches in other ways? Do you think there was an over-reliance on Plan A? Did you have Plan B, C, D, etc.? FAF DU PLESSIS: Yeah, but Plan A is gone. It's gone because the Plan A was those bowlers playing together. They haven't played a game together on this tour. You know, initially Plan B was Anrich Nortje was an extra pace bowler that we had lined up for if we had an injury, to have another X-factor bowler that can bowl 145 plus. He got injured, as well. So now you're moving into your all rounder territory. You have two medium pace all-rounders and then you have Chris Morris that like sits in between your fast bowlers and your medium pace bowlers so, now, we have to. We have to really look at what we can do to try to be effective; is it playing all rounders together, do we play two spinners. Now it's reshuffling all our cards and see how best we can deal with it. Q. Obviously South Africa hasn't got a great record in World Cups, but you've never started this badly. Do you think you still have a chance at winning it? FAF DU PLESSIS: I have to believe that. I won't be South African if I said no. Yeah, I'll go back and try and see how we can lift the spirits in the team. We're playing a strong team in India in their first game, and our third game, so as a team, we know. We know we're not good enough at the moment and we have to turn it around. It's not like international cricket, there you go, there's a win for you. The World Cup is set up, strong teams, and you know, we have to. We have no other choice. We won't be going back and just falling over, I can promise you that. Q. You came to this World Cup with a very different philosophy I think from previous South African teams and it made perfect sense because some of the emphatic players are gone. Do you think when you do that, that there's a danger of a team forgetting who they are, and if you are changing the branding or the DNA, do you think your team still know who they are? FAF DU PLESSIS: Definitely. I don't think it's got anything to do with that. At the moment, it's a skill thing. Our skill is not where it needs to be. It's got absolutely nothing to do with -- as I said, injuries, you can make excuses, as many as you want. Every single player in our dressing room is not playing to their full potential, and that's why we're not putting the performance on. As soon as that starts happening, then those things will change. Every player on the team can say that. None of us has been on top of your game yet, so it's just about making sure you look at yourself in the mirror and see how you can find that answer. Q. Do you think on the mindset, there will be a change in the days leading up to India? Do you think there's a need for harsh words in the dressing room? Also, your message for the guys back home who are watching today. FAF DU PLESSIS: Well, there's always -- certainly from my style of captaincy, has always been there's a line, and if you don't perform to that line, then there's a lot of harsh words. I'm certainly not Mr. Nice Guy. There's times for strictness and there's times that you see a dressing room needs you to be strong and to motivate them, and that was the previous game when we lost to England the way that we did. But now, today was not good enough. As I said, there's absolutely no excuses from me. So if the guys think they can make excuses for a performance like today, then they will be challenged. That's a fact. And your second part was the fans. Yeah, I think the fans understand what I'm saying now that it's not good enough. I'm even going to try to make excuses. We are not playing to our full potential. It was great to see South African fans in the last two games come out to support, because it makes me really proud to come and play; that there's people coming here to support us. They are flying all the way, and it's expensive to come here, so you appreciate that, and you sit there and you think about it. But for us, the fans know; all I can say is that we'll keep fighting. Q. I want to go back to your plans A, B and C. When do you start thinking about, like if you get to a point where Dale Steyn isn't ready, when do you have to start thinking about replacing people in the squad? FAF DU PLESSIS: It's tricky, yeah, because our resources is slim, as I said, if there was an option to straightaway put him in, if Anrich was here, you could say, listen Dale, it's getting to that time now where you need to play or we need to substitute you. But now we have got two or three. So do you send both back to get someone else in? The medical guru here will try and help us out with that. Dale Steyn is still, if he's fit, he can still make a huge difference to our performance, and we need guys to make differences in this team. So Dale is one of them. Lungi is also one of them. Lungi will also be the first to say that he has not bowled to his full potential the last two games. He's normally our best line and length bowler. Yeah, he worked hard on his fitness leading up to this game, but you know, he's also had a lot of injuries over a short period of time now so, that makes -- got to challenge him to work hard and making sure that he gets his fitness up for longer. It's important for a young guy to play cricket over extended period of time, not just to play a couple of games, break down, a couple of games again. Q. You came into this World Cup, obviously with a lot of reliance on your pace bowlers, and maybe using aggressive bowling, short pitch that, sort of thing. Do you feel today -- obviously you after 45, got yourselves back into a reasonable position, but then the last five, it just seemed like there was a lot of short balls that were disappearing to the boundary. Do you feel you need to rethink that? FAF DU PLESSIS: No, that wasn't the plan at all. The plan was for the long boundary. The plan for the bowler was to give yourself a lot of different options at the depth. It was certainly not just to bowl short. I think pace off is what the bowlers tried more often than not because of the nature of the size of the square. But within that, you still need to make sure that you know the yorkers, and today we missed our yorkers. Every time a bowler tried a yorker, it went for six. So I think then naturally what happens is you try and find your other skill, whether that's a short ball or a bounce. Yeah, because there was a couple of opportunities there on the boundary that we possibly could have taken. I remember one ball going over KG's head that was a catch. That was the in-batter. Once again, it's the small little mistakes that we're making, which is giving the opposition more runs. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports   |
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