All Blacks’ grit inspires New Zealand against South Africa

PUNE: New Zealand captain Tom Latham hopes to summon the fighting spirit of the All Blacks when his side face fellow ICC World Cup semi-final contenders South Africa in Pune on Wednesday.

The match comes just days after South Africa edged New Zealand by a point in a dramatic Rugby World Cup final in Paris, where the beaten All Blacks had to play most of the game a man down after skipper Sam Cane was sent off.

Latham’s men also suffered a narrow defeat last time out, going down by five runs against Australia after just failing to chase down a huge target of 389.

“That was obviously a fantastic game of rugby,” Latham told a pre-match press conference on Tuesday.

“But I guess you look at the All Blacks as a whole, they played some great rugby throughout the World Cup.”

He added: “I think you look at the final and I guess the Kiwi way is we look to scrap the whole way, obviously faced with a little bit of adversity in terms of being down to 14 men.

“I guess it’s something we talk about in our team as well — we scrap right to the end regardless of the situation.

“I think we showed that the other night as well, taking the game as deep as we can and if we can do that, then hopefully that gives ourselves a good chance towards the back end of the game.”

As for the match in front of his side, Latham said New Zealand would face a “really hot” South Africa, with their lone defeat so far this World Cup a shock loss to the Netherlands.

“South Africa, they’re running really hot at the moment,” said Latham.

“And they’ve got a lot of power throughout the whole line-up.” But he added: “We certainly know we’ve got a world-class bowling attack as well…It’s going to be a great contest tomorrow.”

New Zealand still have injury doubts over regular captain and star batsman Kane Williamson (thumb), fast bowler Lockie Ferguson (Achilles) and all-rounder Mark Chapman (calf).

South Africa have no World Cup ‘choking’ hangover

Meanwhile, Rassie van der Dussen insisted South Africa are carrying no World Cup baggage even if their long-suffering fans may sometimes feel they are “watching a movie they’ve seen before”.

South Africa, despite teams featuring the likes of Allan Donald, Jonty Rhodes, Herschelle Gibbs, Lance Klusener and A.B. de Villiers, have yet to win the World Cup since their post-apartheid entry into the event in 1992.

The manner of South Africa’s exits has led to accusations of “choking” and their critics were ready with fresh suggestions of mental frailty following a shock loss to the Netherlands earlier in this edition.

But that reverse remains South Africa’s lone defeat so far in six World Cup games in India, with the Proteas just holding their nerve to defeat Pakistan by one wicket last time out.

Van der Dussen, asked during a pre-match press conference in Pune on Tuesday if South Africa were indeed carrying any “baggage”, replied: “No, I suppose it’s about just acknowledging and accepting it.

“After that Dutch game, we took a lot of flak from back home and certainly in the media as well. There’s no use in delving too much into it. You’ve just got to accept it and move on.”

The 34-year-old batsman added: “You realise that there’s people at home and fans that have been really scarred by the previous performances of South Africa at World Cups.

“You can’t really criticise them for feeling that way, for the criticism to come from, I suppose, a place of hurt where they’ve seen that movie before.”

Even so, he insisted: “But personally, and I think it goes for probably most of the people in our squad and management team, that we haven’t lived that.

“So, it’s not really applicable to us.”