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ICC CRICKET WORLD CUP

June 13, 2019

Gary Stead

West Bridgford, Nottinghamshire, England, UK

Q. I know weather is weather, but how deflating is it going through an experience like that today preparing to play a side like India, only for it to fall apart in such a sudden way?
GARY STEAD: Yeah, it would have been lovely to play. It's always tough mentally, I think on a day like this, when you come down prepared to play, and it doesn't happen. But as you said, it's out of our control. We can't really do much about it, so we've got to move on quickly for South Africa.

Q. Is there anything structurally you'd like to see done differently to help smooth the way, whether it's a factor in a future tournament, such as reserve days or the ability to move games, or things of that nature?
GARY STEAD: Reserve days, I think, is going to be a logistical nightmare. The ICC, I think, have made that fairly well-known. Unfortunately, it's a bit of an anomaly already. When you look at the amount of days we've lost already, I think it's the biggest sort of amount of days lost in a World Cup ever. So we can't do much about that. We just have to, I guess, push on with what the schedule is.

Q. Gary, how much does it hurt knowing you'll be prepared to strike after what you did in the warmup game, and I guess you sort of had found the measure of India perhaps despite losing the series over summer?
GARY STEAD: I'm not sure we found the measure of India necessarily. I think the warmup games were a chance for us to get back together as a team, but we're acutely aware it had no bearing on what was going to happen today.

But as I said, we would have loved to have played India today. They're obviously going hot, and we feel as though we're playing reasonably well as well, so it would have been a really nice matchup.

Q. Does that mean you can perhaps hold something back for a potential semifinal down the track in that you haven't used up all your wares?
GARY STEAD: Look, I think, if you want to go through and play a semifinal or make the final, then you're going to have to play all the teams, and you're going to have to beat those teams as well if you want to win it. I'm not sure we'll necessarily hold anything back at all, but it just means we haven't struck each other in this tournament.

Q. As the support staff, how do you deal with this? I mean, how do you keep with such a breakdown in momentum in that the team was winning? As a support staff, how do you keep things going?
GARY STEAD: To be honest, the first thing we're going to do is have a couple of days off. We don't play again for about six days now, and I think it's important that you manage your breaks. Whilst we haven't played, we're still prepared, and so everything you do on your days before is about preparing to play still.

So it's quite ironic. I think our last four trainings have all been indoors. It's just what we have to deal with, and I guess our team, we try to pride ourselves on our adaptability, so we have to again be adaptable.

Q. Given how confident you were of winning this game, do you reflect on it as a point gained or a point lost?
GARY STEAD: Look, it would have been lovely to play for two points, if possible. I think it's too early in the tournament to know if that is going to be influential or not in the long run of things. We still have -- we know we still have to play good cricket against all the teams that we come up against. South Africa's next on the agenda for us now, so we have to let this one go very quickly and move on to that.

Q. My question is, because of the rain, do you think teams who have started well early in the tournament, it is an advantage for them? Teams who have started well?
GARY STEAD: Well, we have to play everyone, so at some stage, I think the only real luck that comes into it is things like washout games and things like that, that how many you have, does that have an influence at the end? But at the end of the day, we want to be able to play for two points against every team, and then it's a real measure of where we're at as a team as well.

Q. Do you think a week rained out like this will discourage the ICC or have the potential from discouraging the ICC from holding major events in, well, this country, but also New Zealand?
GARY STEAD: I don't think so. If you took the UK summer from last year, then I'm not sure it did rain at all from the sound of things. It's a bit of bad luck really. It can rain anywhere in the world. My first tour was in Dubai, and it rained there in the desert, and I never thought it was going to rain there either. So I don't think we can really help that.

Q. You spoke about preparing for the days off. Could you give us a sense of what the team is going to be doing over the next six days.
GARY STEAD: Yes. So tomorrow's a travel day to Birmingham. We're trying to give our guys the chance, if they wish, with their families to travel outside and sort of get a wee bit of downtime. So the next two days will be their own essentially.

And then the lead in to the South Africa game then, we'll do our normal, the way we go about preparing for the game. We'll scout the opposition. We'll have our two trainings beforehand with a view to playing South Africa in Edgbaston in -- sorry, I don't even know what day it is, but in about six days time.

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