Upbeat South Africa ready for the pressure game

London: South African skipper AB De Villiers and his team are ready to soak in the pressure of playing the home team in the first of the semi-finals of the ICC Champions Trophy on Wednesday.

“I think the most important thing there is to expect the unexpected. We know it’s going to happen. We know the pressure will be there. We’re playing in front of a massive crowd and everyone will be against us. I’m expecting the pressure to happen,” he said on the eve of the game.

The man responsible for drilling this mindset into the team is Mike Horn, the motivational speaker who teamed up with Gary Kirsten to inspire India to victory in the 2011 World Cup.

This time, Horn is part of the South African think tank along with Kirsten and DeVilliers was acknowledged his contribution: “It’s something we learned from Mike Horn leading up to this tournament, always expecting what you don’t think is going to happen.

“We have great team spirit at the moment and I’ve got full confidence in all the players around me. It’s not up to one or two or three guys. I know each guy on the team can win the game for us. We’ve worked very well under Kirsten. He’s really allowed us to free up our minds and really just show our skills under pressure. It’s exactly what we’re going to do tomorrow.”

De Villiers knows that if the whole match is rained off, England will progress to the final as they top the group. Villiers is not affected by this scenario too: “I think obviously whoever finishes top of the log worked for their points, and that’s just how it is. It’s something that’s out of our control. Like I said in the previous game, there was a lot of weather around in Cardiff, but it’s out of our control. We’re just here to play the game, so we’ll do the same thing tomorrow.”

De Villiers is also not bothered about his team being labelled underdogs for this match.

“It’s quite simple [to see] that they’re playing in front of the home crowd, in home conditions, so they must be favourites.

“I believe we had two big crunch games in the last two games, which gave us a lot of confidence, and I believe we can beat them. If they are playing in front of the home crowd, I think all the pressure is on them. We’ll make sure we do the basics well, like I said before, and if things go our way we’ll end up on top.”

The wicketkeeper-batsmen wants everyone to look at the positives that his team has achieved and not worry about the future.

“We’re all really privileged to be in this position, and as a team. We are humbled by the fact that we made it through two knockout stages and into the semi-finals. This is an opportunity to make our country proud, and we’re going to take full advantage of it.”

De Villiers is also not worried over even England bowlers producing reverse swing. When asked about England doing something funny with the ball, De Villiers said: “If they are doing something funny with the ball, then it’s definitely a concern, yes, but we’ve got no proof of that.

“They seem to get it to reverse a bit quicker than the rest of the teams so maybe they’ve just got really good skill in their bowlers. We’ve tried as well, I think all teams try to do that, and we haven’t really managed to succeed in that, but we’ll try that again tomorrow and see if our bowlers can find that skill to reverse the ball.”