ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2022

October 19, 2022

Gerhard Erasmus

Kardinia Park

Namibia

Pre Match Media Conference

Q. Tomorrow, as it's panned out, is going to be basically a knockout game. I imagine there will be a few nerves and excitement ahead of it. Does it help in any way that the team you're playing you know so well, having so many battles against them in the past?

GERHARD ERASMUS: Yeah, I think it's always something that we try and use as a bit of analysis how other teams play, so definitely something that we'll be looking into and just an added advantage against the other side that you're playing against, having seen more or less all of their battles before.

All the batters say that they've got a fresh side, so we've got some work to do to be properly prepared for that game.

Q. About yesterday's game, the scoring on the first day, you were the only team who mastered the pitch and got the big score. Yesterday you obviously struggled, as well, as the team. What's the difficulty of playing out there?

GERHARD ERASMUS: Yeah, I think after you've set your foundation as a batter, it's probably where you make up the strike rate a little bit, and I think that's been particularly difficult for lots of the batters through certain periods of the innings. I think that middle period has proved to be quite a difficult one for the batters on all of these wickets to master.

I don't know what to put it down to. I think it's a combination of good bowling and probably a bit of slowness in the wicket and a bit of two-pace on the drop-in pitches.

In saying that, also a slightly slower outfield, so it doesn't give you the pockets to get your twos in with the dimensions of the squareness of the boundary also being quite short, I don't think there's lots of twos on the field, so I think that as a whole is where the run rates have been really low throughout all the games in that middle period.

Q. You pointed out after the Sri Lanka game that it would have been a massive event in all of your lives, and you were probably on an emotional high. Was there any idea that it was a bit of a come-down yesterday from that?

GERHARD ERASMUS: Yeah, I think it's only human nature to sort of celebrate a big win like that, and I think the emotions would have been inevitable. And in cricket, you have those mental challenges. I think it was a very tough thing to do to recover after that.

Although we have all the know-how how to do that, the experience of how to do that, I think it's still just something of a momentum, sort of ups and downs that you have in tournament cricket. And I think it was always going to be very tough to reset fully and to have the same intent as that first game, and I think our boys really tried to do that in large part.

I think our preparation was really good for the Netherlands game, and I think we had all the right plans, and unfortunately I just didn't think it was our day yesterday. I think we got outplayed. I think they really bowled well in certain overs and phases of the game, and we showed how tough a wicket it was to score on, and we stuck to sort of what we know, which is a good fight for 40 overs long, and we made it a very close game.

To get back to your question, I do think it was very tough to mentally reset after that game. I do think we did our best to do that, and that's what we're going to do for the next game.

Q. Can I ask about Wiese's fitness, how is he after his head knock yesterday?

GERHARD ERASMUS: Yeah, he's all good. I think he's come through all of his fitness tests and all of that. Got a bit of a bump on his forehead and had a bit of a rugby scrummage taped around his head, but it's all find now.

Q. Talking about Wiese and Smit, I think they had nine wrongs at the end of the innings yesterday. Do tactical retirements ever figure into your planning, and might yesterday have been a situation where you might have thought about it?

GERHARD ERASMUS: I think we sort of back all the players on our team in different roles and in different ways to play what is in front of them in the correct way.

I don't think anyone can really say that power 18 on the day yesterday could have been the way to go. We didn't see any power 18 throughout the middle and the late part of the Dutch innings, so you can't just make a call that would have come off.

But in saying that, it's a good point that some of your players that are able to up their run rate don't have enough balls to sort of set the foundation and do that.

Unfortunately on the day, it just didn't quite happen for those guys with myself and Frylinck's partnership probably extending a little bit longer because of the fall of wickets.

All in all, a tough balance to find not to lose too many wickets but to keep the run rate up. You know, sort of sometimes having that feeling of you might get bowled out.

Yeah, so that's how you ask the questions that cricketers always have to answer. It's finding the right balance of scoring, pace and line, the right roles for the right players at the right time.

I think we paced it very nicely in the Sri Lankan innings that came off for us. One day it comes off and another day you might have struggles, and that's probably largely down to how the Dutch bowled.

Q. Another tactical thing, I've never noticed you do this: Yesterday you bowled quite a lot of balls from 23, 24 yards. Is that something you have done a lot of before, or was that inspired by the day before?

GERHARD ERASMUS: No, it was I guess also something I've tried to employ myself. Having bowled more and more over the last sort of year or two-year period, yeah, just different skills on different surfaces. Some days I don't think you necessarily need the ball at all and others you probably do.

I understand Mark Wood does it as well, but I thought, I've just done it my way, as well.

Q. Can I just ask what the thinking is behind it? Is it that you're trying to rush the batter? What's the advantage?

GERHARD ERASMUS: I probably don't really want to give away the secret of it, but I guess it's simply just a depth perception kind of thing, and yeah, batters don't face many balls from 24 yards. I think it's just the timing and perhaps the step and the bat swing, something like that.