ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2022

October 24, 2022

Dave Houghton

Bellerive Oval

Zimbawae

Post Match Media Conference

South Africa 51/0, Zimbabwe 79/5

THE MODERATOR: Thank you for joining us for this press conference this evening. We'll get started.

Q. First of all, how is Richard feeling right now? Do you have any idea?

DAVE HOUGHTON: Well, he is lying in the changing with a bunch of ice strapped to his ankle, so I think it's a little too early to assess the real damage.

But, obviously, we're not too happy about the fact that he is not in a great space at the moment for bowling at the moment. We'll just see. We will have to monitor over the next days.

Q. Are you disappointed that the umpires didn't have you come off earlier?

DAVE HOUGHTON: Look, I understand the need to try to get these games for the public and for everybody else and the TV people watching. I understand the need for us to try and play in slightly inclement weather to get a result, but I thought we overstepped that mark in this game, and I thought there was probably four or five overs we should have come off. I don't think we should have even bowled a ball to be fair.

The umpires are those guys making those decisions out in the middle, and they seemed to think it was fit to play. And I disagree with them, but there's nothing I can do off the field.

Q. Do you think if the situation was reversed and South Africa had been bowling, do you think there's a greater chance that they would have come off rather than you guys bowling?

DAVE HOUGHTON: No, I'm not going to answer that one. Thanks (laughing).

Q. If I can just clarify, would you confirm that you thought that the conditions were unsafe?

DAVE HOUGHTON: I thought the rain had got so heavy at once, it was ridiculous. For most of the evening, nighttime, it was misty, sort of mizzle and stuff, but it got to the stage where we could hear it thumping on the rooftop in the dugout. To me that's no longer mizzle and drizzle. That's time to get off the field.

The field was wet. It was wet when we started. It was wet when South Africa fielded, so there were difficult conditions for both sides. It got more and more wet as we bowled.

When your keeper is sliding trying to move down the leg side standing up to the spinners, it's too wet. I don't think the conditions were right to carry on playing.

Q. Winter is a game itself. Winning the task and deciding to bat when there was a bit of weather around, what was the thinking behind that decision, do you think?

DAVE HOUGHTON: It's our preferred way of playing the game. We weren't sure exactly what sort of weather we would get, so we were hoping we would get our batting innings in before any rain arrived.

We felt we would be better off if we had actually got a score on board and tried to defend it, which is always our preferred way of playing.

I mean, it's amazing. We have played four games here, and three times we wanted to do different things, and we had lost the toss each time.

Today, which we really didn't mind what we did, we ended up winning a toss and had to make a decision. Then the game suddenly gets curtailed before we face a ball. It's one of those things.

There's lots of learning in a game like this for us. I believe even though we have had our status for a long time and we've been in a lot of competitions and a few World Cups and that, this side is starting to mature quite nicely, and there's learning in every game for us.

We came out there batting, and we weren't calm. We weren't composed. We swiped and swung and we ran badly between the wickets, and it took a couple of youngsters at the end to show the rest of the guys how to remain calm and play well.

Q. What other learnings do you think you could take from, apart from as far as the situation on the field, but from the bat?

DAVE HOUGHTON: I think the ability to stay calm and play your best shot. I thought watching Quinton play was a real lesson for our guys about how to stay calm and still be able to smack the ball around the place. I thought we thrashed at the ball too much up front, and we didn't get anywhere near hitting them. That's the biggest piece of learning for me today.

Q. One final one. Could you shed some light on what conversations the umpires and the Zimbabwean players had at that point? Because a couple of times it seemed like you might definitely come off and there was a bit of back and forth between the umpires and the bowlers, but then that didn't happen. Do you know what happened there?

DAVE HOUGHTON: I know that Craig and Raza had a word with the umpire and said, basically just asked what do you constitute as rain because we're getting quite wet here.

I don't really know much else. I didn't ask them what the actual conversations were, but I think eventually Sean Williams said just as he was about to start bowling that he didn't think he could bowl, it was too wet, and they brought us off.

Q. Dave, I'm asking about the communication perspective. When was there communication? Did you talk to the umpires before the match was reduced, and then at some point in the middle and then after you went back on? Is there a sequence of events you can describe for us?

DAVE HOUGHTON: There wasn't a lot of talking with me. I asked the question of the third umpire about why we had gone back on when it was raining, and he said it was up to the umpires in the middle to make that decision.

Other than that, we were just communicated with how many overs were left and what the target was now and so on. After the first time we came off when they reduced it to 7-overs, there was a bit of a delay because no one seemed to know what the target was. There wasn't a lot of communication between us.