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| April 15, 2007 | Sunday | Rabi-ul-Awwal 26, 1428 |
Hectic schedule doesn’t bother NZ coach
ST GEORGE’S (Grenada), April 14: New Zealand coach John Bracewell insisted his side had no problems playing two of the leading teams at the World Cup in the space of three days.
The Black Caps, who suffered their first defeat of the tournament when losing by six wickets Sri Lanka in the Super Eights on Thursday, returned to Grenada's National Stadium on Saturday to take on potential semi-finalists in the South Africans.
New Zealand, third in the table and two points ahead of fourth-placed South Africa, need one more win from their two remaining Super Eights games to be certain of reaching the last four.
“We're very used to travel, play, travel, play. So there's no excuse there in not being able to back it up. Every international team has to do it,” said Bracewell.
“We've got to concentrate on Saturday. It's a game we want to win, must win.”
New Zealand's batsmen had a largely forgettable day against Sri Lanka with the exception of Scott Styris whose good form continued with an unbeaten 111.
Meanwhile, down the order James Franklin, primarily a left-arm quick, showed further evidence of his batting ability with 25 not out off 27 balls.
Bracewell said he was thinking of promoting Franklin to take on opposition spin bowlers.
That's unlikely to be an issue against South Africa, who rarely field a specialist slow bowler, although skipper Graeme Smith bowls off-spin while left-armer Robin Peterson is in the Proteas squad.
However, it is a tactic that could come into play during New Zealand's final Super Eights match on Friday against world champions Australia, who have left-arm wrist spinner Brad Hogg in their attack.
“It's great that he's starting to grow in confidence,” Bracewell said of Franklin.
“There are times when I'm tempted to try him against the left-arm spinners and give them a belt in the middle and used him as a bit of a shock-hitter. That is now becoming an option.”
South Africa's batsmen were undone by Bangladesh's trio of spinners during a shock 67-run Super Eights defeat in Guyana last Saturday.
That result could see New Zealand make a change to their attack by bringing in an extra spinner in off-break bowler Jeetan Patel to play alongside left-armer Daniel Vettori.
Meanwhile, the coach defended New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming's tactics during the Sri Lanka match.
Fleming delayed taking powerplays in a bid to minimise damage to his side's run-rate.
And with that being the first tie-breaker for semi-final qualification if teams are level on points, Fleming said any side that didn't think about it was ‘dumb’.
Bracewell added: “We took a gamble on bringing back (fast bowler) Shane Bond to try to take wickets that way.
“Once that was done and dusted we went back to our normal plan of trying to screw them down and put pressure on by stringing together dot balls.
“As a consequence, that lengthens out the game. Then it becomes the opposition's decision on whether to push.
“If they push hard to try to get their own run-rate in a healthier position than a couple of wickets can actually bring you back into the play.
“It wasn't that we weren't trying to win the game, it wasn't that we were trying to fix ours (run-rate), we were trying to take advantage of theirs to put ourselves in a position where we could win the match,” added Bracewell whose side are level on points with second-placed Sri Lanka but narrowly behind the 1996 champions on net run-rate.—AFP
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