SA vs ZIM 2018: The goal is to find the perfect balance before the World Cup, says JP Duminy 

South Africa will be hosting Zimbabwe for 3 ODIs and 2 T20Is.

JP Duminy will lead South Africa against Zimbabwe in absence of Faf du Plessis | Getty

Having been appointed the ODI skipper in absence of the injured Faf du Plessis, left-hand batting stalwart JP Duminy has said that it is the ambition of finding the best balance before the all-important ICC Cricket World Cup in England next year, with which Proteas are going to approach their upcoming series against Zimbabwe. 

South Africa will be hosting their African neighbours for a 3-match ODI series starting Sunday, September 30 and Duminy sees this as a good opportunity to try out a few things with the long term objectives in mind. 

"I am excited by it, there is a lot of one-day cricket leading up to the World Cup for us to experiment and to find out what works for us, tomorrow is another opportunity for that," said Duminy ahead of the series, "It is about being consistent in what you are trying to achieve. It is about finding the perfect balance between being overly aggressive and conservative, that is what we are trying to achieve, finding that balance."

"If we can find that consistency we will enter a World Cup feeling confident and we will walk away from series’ knowing that we have achieved something. It is not only about winning a series but identifying how we want to play." he added. 

Duminy also emphasized on the need to take things forward from their recent 3-2 series win against Sri Lanka on the tour of the Island nation and said, "The boys will have taken a lot of confidence from the series win, we tried a few different things in our style of play and we will have learnt a lot from that." he added, "This series is a continuation of that; what can we do, what can’t we do, what are we willing to explore, what risks are we willing to take, this is a continuation of finding our feet in that new brand of cricket we want to play."

In a message to his team, Duminy also stressed the importance of not taking their opponent lightly at all, especially as Zimbabwe are greatly boosted with their best players coming back. 

"They’ve got some aggressive players, If you look at their captain, Hamilton [Masakadza], he has been around for a long time. Brendan Taylor is a veteran for Zimbabwe and has done exceptionally well for them and [Sean] Williams also comes to mind." he said, "Those are the kind of players who are going to be key for them. They have an attack that we haven’t seen in the last three years so it is about making sure we tick all our boxes with our preparation and making sure we come out with that aggressive mindset even though we haven’t played against them a lot." and signed off. 

(Inputs from ICC)

 
 

By Kashish Chadha - 30 Sep, 2018

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