Gqeberha – Former Proteas all-rounder Robin Peterson is confident the Proteas one-day international squad is experienced enough to deliver good performances at the upcoming 50-over World Cup.
Modern professional cricketers have raised a valid point that the schedule is too busy to maintain participation in all three formats of the game and still play domestic cricket around the world.
As a result, the star of the 2019 World Cup, Ben Stokes, hung up his boots in the 50-over format, citing the busy playing schedule and his desire to focus on Test cricket a bit more.
The negatives for a busy international calendar are there, but there is also positives that South Africa will benefit from going into the World Cup in October.
In a space of two years, a player such as Temba Bavuma went from having zero World Cup experience to having two World Cups (T20) under the belt and in both of them - he was captain.
This means SA will take an experienced captain to this year’s ODI World Cup and that was not going to be a possibility had the schedule been different.
“They’ve all experienced the World Cup because they’ve been to the T20 World Cup, so they know what to expect,” said Peterson who competed at the 2011 World Cup in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka.
“It’s not like the 50-over World Cup is that different. Yes, the formats are different but everything else is the same.
“The intensity, the media, all the big teams will be there, and all the big players will be there. But everybody in this group of players has gotten a taste for it. There is enough World Cup experience.”
The two World Cups Bavuma has been involved in have been a classic SA cricket disaster.
From the taking of the knee drama in which Quinton de Kock became the focus, to getting knocked out of the competition despite losing just one match, then to being embarrassed by the Netherlands.
Nonetheless, valuable experience has been gathered in a short space of time, and Peterson suggests that the best thing to do now is to go to the World Cup with optimism.
“The past is the past, you always go to the next one with optimism,” Peterson told IOL Sport.
“In that 2011 World Cup we actually played solid cricket, we just lost the quarter-final which could also happen in a series. In the 2015 World Cup, the guys played solid cricket there again and lost in the semi-finals.
“I know it’s heart breaking for the public, but if you were to break it down you will see that we have actually played good cricket in two World Cups.
“It was in 2019 that I am not sure whether we were at our best. I think as a group, a lot of guys were probably at the backend of their careers and their best performances were past them.
“Besides all that, just generally speaking, we’ve played well in World Cups, we just haven’t won it.”
@imongamagcwabe
IOL Sport