Faf: We’re going to fight fire with fire

Against the most attacking team in the world in England, South Africa will be going out to fight fire with fire when they meet in their World Cup opener at The Oval on Thursday, according to captain Faf du Plessis.

England are the number one ranked team in the tournament and have transformed themselves into a side that is constantly trying to push the envelope in terms of batting.

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They have made the two highest totals in ODI history – 481 for six against Australia last year, and 444 for three versus Pakistan in 2016.

“England are a tremendous team, they’ve showed that over the last 24 months, they deserve their favourites tag and we will have to play really good cricket to beat them. England play very aggressively and there’s no point trying to play defensively against them because they’ve shown they can take on any bowling attack.

“Not having Dale Steyn means we have to do a bit of chopping and changing to get our balance right. We have to be the most attacking we can be so when we set up the team we have to make sure we can take wickets. We have to be as positive as possible, play the style of cricket we want to play. England have a very long batting line-up, all their bowlers can score runs at the end,” Du Plessis said at The Oval on Wednesday.

All of which makes it sound as if Chris Morris, who is ostensibly the reserve fast bowler in the squad having replaced the injured Anrich Nortje, is going to be the replacement for Steyn, ahead of Dwaine Pretorius, who brings similar skills to the party as Andile Phehlukwayo.

Du Plessis was also doing his best to take the hype out of Thursday’s big opening game against the hosts, reminding the media that it is merely one game in a long tournament.

“Tomorrow is just the first step of a six-week campaign, we have some young guys and their only experience of the World Cup is winning the U19 one and I think they can have a huge impact. Some of the guys have stated that this tournament will be where they finish up, but that’s not our focus. We want to make sure we enjoy every day as much as possible – it’s the difference between the pressure of having to do something compared to something you love to do.

“There is more noise at the World Cup but we are trying to put it to one side, relax, have fun and control what we can, which is practising well and hard, and having a good culture. If you focus on the opposition then you can get distracted, so we just want to focus on playing good cricket. Teams do tend to treat these events as bigger than normal, but I don’t think we should follow that. We don’t want to be too high or too low when we win or lose. When you’re tense and desperate, that’s when you make mistakes,” Du Plessis said.

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