ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2021

November 1, 2021

Pierre De Bruyn

Sheikh Zayed Stadium

South Africa

Pre Match Media Conference

Q. Obviously a disappointing result two days ago; what have you been doing over the past 24 hours to try and get the team back up and focusing on tomorrow's match against one of the best teams in the world?

PIERRE DE BRUYN: Yeah, I suppose a loss like that, it doesn't help. You don't have a lot of time to harp on it. You need to reassess quickly. You need to reset.

The last 24 hours was a matter of just trying to relax because we know how big tomorrow is and what we're going to face. Important that we take the learnings from last night or yesterday and improve on those points, and tomorrow is going to be a great experience for the players, but we need to be 20 per cent better.

Q. Namibia obviously have been the revelation of the tournament, irrespective of the fact that you may not have had a positive result yesterday. I think people just love watching you play, the passion that you bring to the game. My specific question is people have been actually very pleasantly surprised to see the kind of skill related to the control of the white ball that someone like a Ruben Trumpelmann or someone like a David Wiese shows as compared to the so-called big boys of international cricket; in fact, they have been better on many occasions. Do you think the fact that a team like Namibia playing more of white ball cricket and not distracted into too many different kinds of formats which include the red ball or the pink ball, that actually helps you master the art better than the so-called big boys of international cricket?

PIERRE DE BRUYN: Yes, absolutely. First of all, thanks for your compliment. These guys have really worked hard to have and create that reputation of what we currently have.

I believe that skill-wise this group of players have a lot of white ball skills. It didn't fall out of the sky. The last two and a half, three years we've worked extremely hard as a unit to improve our skills in all our skill sets, bowlers, batters. There was a year of lockdown. We didn't have the opportunity to train together, but we still managed to train. We trained indoors. We trained on our patios, in our lounges at home. We shared the videos. We did live stuff.

We believed, and I always believed as a coach that the only way for us to compete is to upscale ourselves in all departments.

There's one thing playing passionate cricket with heart and this street fighter mentality, but this game comes down to skills, and we need to continue improving our skills. You've mentioned Ruben Trumpelmann. He's got phenomenal skill if he swings the ball. David Wiese, he brings experience but also skill and power. And then everyone else in the team, they bring that skill set that's required, and when we get it together and we gel together as a team, I believe this team is very dangerous.

Yeah, we've really worked hard on our skill sets.

Q. How were you able to make the group gel together given the COVID crisis so as a team you're totally united and making the big changes. How was you were able to do team united when the COVID situation was there in the country? How the boys are united and playing as a team despite being in a COVID situation?

PIERRE DE BRUYN: If I understand that question correctly, as a coach I had to make a decision in not wasting any time. The pandemic, not seeing each other for a year, that could be an easy excuse of preparation wasn't good enough, et cetera, but I had a different mindset. I designed programs, virtual programs to ensure that we keep on working hard and that we share that footage every day, that we have interaction every single day, and the moment we managed to get the lockdown released, we got together as a team. There you could feel a little bit disjointed because you haven't worked together for a long time. However, my aim was to create good competition around us for the last six, seven months, and that started in April when we saw an emerging side to it, South African franchise teams, Zimbabwe emerging. For me that was really key to get this team together and to get a winning culture, as well, in very competitive cricket. We managed to do that.

I think we've played over 50-odd games before we arrived in Dubai on the 26th of September. So that was key for me, putting the hard training and the skill sets together and combine that with really hard competition.

Q. The performance of the team that this is going up, so with the advent of the performance of Namibia in this World Cup, how will it affect the youngsters coming up in the country, this performance?

PIERRE DE BRUYN: Look, what this team, what these players have done the last couple of weeks to inspire the nation back home and to inspire all the young players, kids in Namibia to play cricket has been enormous. I can't explain how big it is, what this team have achieved in terms of inspiration and getting a lot of young people to play cricket.

It was a very good Namibian story, but I also believe it's been a very good, inspiring cricket story, global story, where we showed -- and we're showing as a very small nation with two and a half million people with -- I reckon there's about six turf pitches in Namibia itself, that it can be done. It can be done by really hard work and by really good planning and getting a group of players together and sharing the same vision, sharing the same culture.

I think that is what this story is about, is that it doesn't matter what you have always the resources around you. You can make it happen.

We are now at a stage where we need to improve certain things around us, all the support, because we are now operating at a different level.