da poker： South Africa will be forced to go into their opening World Cup fixtureagainst Netherlands without any last-minutepractice, after persistent drizzle in St Kitts left the team with no option but to call off their training session
Andrew Miller at Basseterre15-Mar-2007
‘We’ve had four years to practice. Getting the job done is what matters. We’ve learnt somehard lessons in past World Cups’ – Mark Boucher © Getty Images
South Africa will be forced to go into their opening World Cup fixtureagainst Netherlands at Basseterre without any last-minutepractice, after persistent drizzle in St Kitts left the team with nooption but to call off their training session and return to theirhotel.”It’s not ideal and unfortunate,” said South Africa’s coach, MickeyArthur, “but we have worked hard in the last few days and the guys areon top of their game so there was no point in just going out andrisking a possible injury.”South Africa’s preparations were slightly complicated by the latearrival of their chief strike bowler, Makhaya Ntini, who stayed hometo attend the birth of his first daughter. He has now landed in StKitts, but is not expected to take part in tomorrow’s match.But, after a week dominated by the war of words between South Africaand the Australians whom they recently superceded as the world’s No. 1side, Arthur was looking forward to getting on with the competition.”I think we are comfortable with where we are with our preparation atthe moment,” said Arthur, who added that his players were not takingthe Dutch challenge lightly. “We have actually dug deep on theNetherlands, and have got a lot of information and video analysis. Wemanaged to trade off with Ireland – they gave us info about theNetherlands, and we gave them info on Pakistan.”Arthur added that he was particularly impressed with the top three inthe Dutch batting line-up – Darron Reekers, Bas Zuiderent and, inparticular, their South African-born Essex allrounder, Ryan tenDoeschate, who has it in him to be one of the stars of the tournament.”ten Doeschate is their best player,” said Arthur. “He’s a goodcricketer and he bowls good areas.”Arthur confirmed that, to neutralise Netherland’s two “big units”,Reekers and Zuiderent, South Africa would emulate Scotland’s strategyof standing their wicketkeeper, Mark Boucher, up to the stumps. “I thinkit’s something that all keepers expect when they come to the WestIndies,” said Boucher. “When it’s subcontinental conditions you haveto do that sort of thing.”Boucher added that he was unfazed by the lack of practice his team hadgot for tomorrow’s match. “We’ve had four years to practice,” heshrugged. “Getting the job done is what matters. We’ve learnt somehard lessons in past World Cups, so we want to be clinical andprofessional.””We’re a lot better side than them [Netherlands] on paper,” added Boucher.”They’ve got two or three dangerous players, but if we go out thereand concentrate on what we can do, we should have no problem in goingthrough.”