“[When] the situation is quite difficult out there… The best players say: ‘Listen, I’ll do it. It’s my turn, let me go out there and I’ll do it.’” – Vincent Barnes On Lockdown Series.
The question is: What separates the greats from the rest?
“Firstly, mental strength. They are driven. Their goals are very well set to succeed, to become the best,”said Barnes exclusively to Cricket Fanatics Magazine.
“All the names you’ve mentioned including people like Dale [Steyn], Vern [Philander], Makhaya [Ntini] – these are driven people, these are people who’re hungry for success, highly skilled people.”
Barnes has worked with most, if not all, of the South African great players [post unity]. He’s watched them grow to become greats in world cricket.
There’s a few people who’d know what makes a top quality cricketer, Vincent Barnes is undeniably one of them.
“When you meet somebody and shake the person’s hand, the first conversation you have with him, you walk away and you go: ‘wow, this is a special man,’” said Barnes.
“That’s the difference between them and some of the other players that’s played international sport. They are a different league when it comes to going about their daily routines and how they set themselves up in their sporting careers.
“The talent is there, there’s no doubt, all of them have amazing talent. But what sets them out is how they deal with the game mentally.
“Like I said they’re all massively driven. All of them are winners, they never think about losing no matter what the situation of the game is.”
Barnes continues talking about the traits of the great South African cricketers he’s worked with.
“[Best players say]: ’Don’t give me a nightwachman, I must go bat’ – I love those type of guys. You get guys who slip down the order when it’s half an hour before close or an hour before close and they think: ‘nah’.
“[When] the situation is quite difficult out there, I’m not going to send a number 10 or 11 to go do it. The best players say: “Listen, I’ll do it. It’s my turn, let me go out there and I’ll do it.’
“That’s what sets them apart from the rest. They go out there and face the music out there.”
There’s been a lot of great Proteas teams that have gone to the World Cup as favorites purely because of the talent they had.
Barnes talks about the 2011 World Cup squad and how good the players were even though they were knocked out in the quarterfinals by a less strong New Zealand team.
“The frightening thing is how we didn’t win world cups with that amount of talent in the change room. 2011 World Cup is probably the most difficult period that we went through.
“We had probably the best 15 players we could ever assemble to be playing in the World Cup and played unbelievable cricket in that World Cup. We had beaten everyone, in fact we had beaten the holder as well in that tournament, India.
“That’s the tough part of it, getting a good understanding as to why we just didn’t click in a World Cup whereas [in] games like the 438 game, beating England in England, beating Australia in Australia, those are tough series against very strong oppositions.”he concluded.
Mr Vincent Barnes gave some amazing change-room stories of the Proteas teams that beat England in England for the first time, Graeme Smith’s presence in the change room and the respect his players had for him.
Click on the video below for more of those stories.
