“I think the work that we do behind the scenes never changes. Every game is important for us,” said Proteas spinner and Man of the Match, Tabraiz Shamsi, after South Africa beat Sri Lanka in their T20 World Cup encounter by four wickets. 

Shamsi emphasized that South Africa relied on a different set of players to perform in every game, and it applied to the game against Sri Lanka as well.

“There are different guys that are scoring runs and winning games for the team, and same with the ball.”

South Africa were under pressure towards the end of the innings, and it took a couple of lusty blows from David Miller and Kagiso Rabada to take the Proteas over the line.

Shamsi is confident in the team’s ability to clinch those crunch moments because of the frequency with which they’ve done it over the last few series.

“We’ve won these kind of moments more often that we’ve lost them, and that’s a huge positive.” 

Dwaine Pretorius’ death bowling has received a lot of praise, given the performances he has delivered through this tournament.

“He does so much analysis. He does so much work behind the scenes. He wants to make sure that he’s well prepared and he’s come up with his game plans with our analysts and the coaching staff.

“I’m really happy that he’s getting the rewards. I think we can’t speak enough about the job that he did for us at the end.

“As you saw, the game was so close, and it’s so turned out that he’s become our death bowling specialist, and so far he’s done a great job.”

Shamsi firmly believes South Africa have the team to win the competition. 

“We’re here for a different challenge. If we didn’t believe that we can win this World Cup, we’d probably be sitting at home and watching on our television sets.”