ICC T20 WORLD CUP 2022

November 5, 2022

Craig Ervine

Melbourne Cricket Ground

Zimbabwe

Pre Match Media Conference

Q. You created an upset against Pakistan; do you still believe you can create an upset against India and spoil India's party for going to the semifinal?

CRAIG ERVINE: I think obviously with the win against Pakistan, it's given us a huge amount of belief that we can beat any side in the tournament. I don't think that will change going into tomorrow's game.

Q. Coming to this World Cup, there were a few doubts, but going after this World Cup, what are the takeaways for your team and what are you looking forward to going ahead from here?

CRAIG ERVINE: Look, we knew that coming into this tournament we had really good momentum. Obviously got some great results leading up to the tournament. The confidence and everything was up for us coming into the tournament, and our main goal was qualifying for the Super 12s and still performing in the Super 12s against some of the bigger teams.

Going away from the World Cup, we want to take that sort of consistency with us. We know that the schedule is very busy going forward, so we want to keep this momentum that we've created.

I think we've created a good support base. There's a lot of people that are following Zimbabwe cricket, and we want to try and keep it that way and build on that going forward.

Q. Your bowlers are ready to bowl up against the likes of Virat Kohli, who's in great form, Suryakumar Yadav, Rohit Sharma; the entire batting lineup is full of batting superstars. Your bowling will be up against a tough batting side. Are you ready for it?

CRAIG ERVINE: Yeah, definitely. This is a great opportunity to bowl against some of the best guys in the world, so there's no reason why guys would not want to actually get out there and produce the goods.

How often do you get the opportunity to put Virat Kohli in your pocket? I'm pretty sure that our fast bowlers will be raring to go come tomorrow.

Q. You were so close against Bangladesh, just not able to pull it off. Can you talk about that? And also, Sikandar Raza has been great in this World Cup; what it means to the World Cup, him in form against the Indian team in this World Cup?

CRAIG ERVINE: Yeah, look, the loss to Bangladesh was very disappointing, especially to come so close, and I think more so from the position that we were in. We pretty much looked out of the game, and then Sean Williams and Ryan Burl to get us up to almost getting over the line. Then the no-ball on that last ball being a no-ball, having to come back out into the field, you sort of sit back and think, well, maybe we're destined to win.

It's such a quick turnaround in this tournament. You can't really sit and think, you know, if we had done this or if we had done that because the next game was only a few days away. We had to just kick on and look at the next game. Sikandar Raza has been exceptional for us in this tournament, and playing against India tomorrow we're going to need those sort of performances I think from a lot of guys on our team if we're going to get over the line.

Q. I just wanted to know, you must have seen the India-Bangladesh game. Recently Zimbabwe beat Bangladesh in an ODI series. What were the lessons you learned from that game versus Bangladesh where they almost pulled off a win versus India?

CRAIG ERVINE: Well, I think for a lot of games, and I think the World Cup has been really exciting because there's been a lot of close games. I think one thing that we've learnt is you're never out of it. If you can try and stay in the game and try and take it as deep as possible, you never know where it might take you.

There's obviously a lot of different pressures that are at play in various games, so especially just trying to take the game as deep as possible and letting the other side panic before you do.

Q. Apart from Sydney and Adelaide, the remaining grounds that we've seen in the World Cup so far, especially Perth and Melbourne, have assisted some type of fast bowling. Do you think you'd be happier playing India in a venue like Melbourne where it's assisting fast bowlers because that gives you a better chance to beat them rather than a flat batting track like Sydney or Adelaide?

CRAIG ERVINE: Look, I don't think we're worrying too much about conditions. Obviously we know here the grounds are pretty big. We also played a warmup game here against Sri Lanka I think before the tournament actually started, but I'm sure the wicket will be slightly different to what that was because we're obviously playing I think in the evening tomorrow.

I think we're just looking at what we do really well and concentrating on our strengths and not looking too much at the opposition.

Q. Virat Kohli is in tremendous form; have you any special plans to stop him?

CRAIG ERVINE: I don't think we have any plans against Virat. I think he's just too good a player. But look, I think a lot of the guys you can dissect so many different theories, and at the end of the day, if you come out and hit a good area, use your change-ups, all those sort of things, I don't think that special plans really work for these guys because they're so good at adapting to different conditions and different situations.

Q. Captain, just wanted to ask you what areas that you think Zimbabwe can improve upon after seeing their performance in this World Cup?

CRAIG ERVINE: Well, I think there's a few areas that we'd like to improve on. I think one is especially the fielding over the last couple games I think has let us down quite a bit. Also the powerplay, I think we've struggled a little bit on the powerplay. We've lost a lot of early wickets and it puts quite a bit of pressure on the middle order.

I think losing those wickets in clusters has been our achilles heel in the batting department, and then in the fielding department it's mainly been our dropped catches and missed fields we need to tidy up on.