Positive Proteas out to draw first blood
But embattled Zimbabwe have been bolstered by a few experienced heads the home side should be wary of.
JP Duminy of the Proteas during the South African national cricket team training session and interviews at Bidvest Wanderers Stadium on September 27, 2018 in Johannesburg, South Africa. (Photo by Sydney Seshibedi/Gallo Images)
The Proteas will be looking to continue with their “positive” brand of cricket in the first of three ODIs against Zimbabwe at the Diamond Oval in Kimberley on Sunday.
The Proteas unleashed this approach in the 3-2 series win against Sri Lanka last month, and look set to continue fine-tuning their methods against their neighbours.
Stand-in captain JP Duminy, who was one of the standout performers under the new mindset in Sri Lanka, said the series will give the players more opportunities to find consistency and balance.
“The boys will have taken a lot of confidence from the series win,” he said of the Sri Lanka tour.
“We tried a few different things in our style of play and we will have learnt a lot from that. This series is a continuation of that; what can we do, what can’t we do, what are we willing to explore, what risks are we willing to take, this is a continuation of finding our feet in that new brand of cricket we want to play.
“It is about being consistent in what you are trying to achieve,” he explained.
“It is about finding the perfect balance between being overly aggressive and conservative, that is what we are trying to achieve, finding that balance. If we can find that consistency we will enter a World Cup feeling confident and we will walk away from series’ knowing that we have achieved something. It is not only about winning a series but identifying how we want to play.”
The Proteas are the overwhelming favourites to win the series – they have won 35 of the 38 ODI matches (2 losses and 1 no result) played – but remain wary of the visitors who are bolstered by experienced campaigners and match-winners in their squad.
“They’ve got some aggressive players,” Duminy said of Zimbabwe.
“If you look at their captain, Hamilton (Masakadza), he has been around for a long time. Brendan Taylor is a veteran for Zimbabwe and has done exceptionally well for them and Williams also comes to mind. Those are the kind of players who are going to be key for them. They have an attack that we haven’t seen in the last three years so it is about making sure we tick all our boxes with our preparation and making sure we come out with that aggressive mindset even though we haven’t played against them a lot.”
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