BRIDGETOWN: Australia great Ricky Ponting has revealed the advice he plans to pass on to South Africa’s players as the Proteas attempt to win their first T20 World Cup title.

South Africa booked their place in the T20 World Cup final with an impressive nine-wicket triumph over Afghanistan in the first semi-final on Wednesday and now face fellow unbeaten side India in the title decider as they attempt to claim their first piece of silverware at an ICC tournament.

Ponting — who has coached a handful of South Africa’s stars at the domestic level in the Indian Premier League and is well renowned a big-game player having won three World Cup titles for Australia — said he planned to touch base with a group of Proteas and pass on some advice ahead of the one-off final in Barbados on Saturday.

Ponting suggested it would be a simple piece of advice that he would provide for South Africa’s players to embrace the moment of playing in a T20 World Cup final.

“A lot of teams say ‘It’s just another game’ and they try and hide away from how big the occasion is and it is no good doing that. it is all about embracing it for what it is,” Ponting said on the ICC’s Digital Daily show. “These players haven’t been there before, so enjoy tonight, enjoy tomorrow.

“But make sure everything you do leading in is the same and your preparation is the same.”

Ponting believes South Africa have the talent to match it with India in the final and has encouraged them to back their skills and ability to showcase their capabilities on the big stage.

“They are undefeated upto here, so they don’t need to change anything and they don’t need to try any harder,” Ponting noted. “They just need to turn up and be the best version of themselves and the best version of themselves as a team on the day and give themselves the best chance.

“If they do that, they will be hard to beat.”

Scoreboard

INDIA: R. Sharma b Rashid57 V. Kohli b Topley9
R. Pant c Bairstow b Curran4 S. Yadav c Jordan b Archer47 H. Pandya c Curran b Jordan23R. Jadeja not out17 S. Dube c Buttler b Jordan0
A. Patel c Salt b Jordan10 A. Singh not out1
EXTRAS (LB-2, W-1)3 TOTAL (for seven wickets, 20 overs)171FALL OF WICKETS: 1-19 (Kohli), 2-40 (Pant), 3-113 (Sharma), 4-124 (S. Yadav), 5-146 (Pandya), 6-146 (Dube), 7-170 (Patel)DID NOT BAT: K. Yadav, J. Bumrah BOWLING: Topley 3-0-25-1, Archer 4-0-33-1, Curran 2-0-25-1, Rashid 4-0-25-1, Jordan 3-0-37-3, Livingstone 4-0-24-0 (1w)ENGLAND:P. Salt b Bumrah5 J. Buttler c Pant b Patel23 M. Ali st Pant b Patel8 J. Bairstow b Patel0 H. Brook b K. Yadav25 S. Curran lbw b K. Yadav2 L. Livingstone run out (K. Yadav)11 C. Jordan lbw b K. Yadav1 J. Archer lbw b Bumrah21A. Rashid run out (S. Yadav)2 R. Topley not out3 EXTRAS (LB-2)2TOTAL (all out, 16.4 overs)103FALL OF WICKETS: 1-26 (Buttler), 2-34 (Salt), 3-35 (Bairstow), 4-46 (Ali), 5-49 (Curran), 6-68 (Brook), 7-72 (Jordan), 8-86 (Livingstone), 9-88 (Rashid)BOWLING: Singh 2-0-17-0, Bumrah 2.4-0-12-2, Patel 4-0-23-3, K. Yadav 4-0-19-3, Jadeja 3-0-16-0, Pandya 1-0-14-0RESULT: India won by 68 runs.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2024