Kagiso Rabada ahead of South Africa’s final group game in the T20 World Cup against Nepal.

South Africa takes on Nepal in their final group stage match in Kingstown on Saturday at 1:30 am SAST.

We previewed the match by focusing on the starting XI and whether South Africa should stick with the XI that has won three games in a row, or whether they should make some changes.

We also reacted to Rob Walter’s thoughts ahead of the fixture.

Here is what Kagiso Rabada had to say ahead of the clash.

[Reporter:]

Welcome to St. Vincent. Good to have you here. South Africa through to Super Eights. It’s been a good tournament, of course, some like two really close wins. So, what all to look forward to in the game against Nepal?

[Kagiso Rabada:]

Yeah, it’s another it’s another international match, another fixture and we’re not taking them lightly and we’re going to try and play some more of the same cricket or even better that we’ve been playing in the tournament.

[Reporter:]

What you’ve made out of the wickets so far.

[Kagiso Rabada:]

As a bowler, I must say, yeah, I have enjoyed it, 100%. But conditions will probably level out now.

[Reporter:]

The Caribbean experience, you’ve played cricket here before. What do you think about how different would it be potentially to USA? And also, the fact that we saw the home team getting incredible support the other night in Trinidad. What kind of support do you expect? We saw the end of the game earlier today, with both the Netherlands and Bangladesh having good support. So, looking forward to starting the Caribbean leg?

[Kagiso Rabada:]

Yeah, 100%. I don’t know how many South African fans are in St. Vincent, but however, maybe there are like 10 of them, however many of them there are. Hopefully, they rock up. But I’m not expecting a whole lot of support. Perhaps maybe some of the locals support South Africa. So hopefully they can turn out numbers.

[Reporter:]

Is the dream for that elusive trophy, of course, now getting stronger? And we’ve seen South Africa, you also made it to the semifinals in the 50 over World Cup. This team looks incredibly strong and has been doing really well. How is it going? Is it day by day or perhaps it’s a target considering the history? Not too much in focus, perhaps to focus on a game at a time.

[Kagiso Rabada:]

I believe we’re going to win it and you just have to take it game by game. You can’t look too far ahead.

[Reporter:]

You played with Sandeep [Lamichhane] back in Delhi Dare Devils, and he’s back in the Nepal team. Do you think his inclusion will have any positive effect in the Nepal team? And how are you looking forward to the class against Nepal?

[Kagiso Rabada:]

Yeah, he’s a mystery spinner, so any mystery spinner is going to be tough to play. But I know the guys are really looking forward to facing that challenge.

[Reporter:]

In New York, the batters didn’t get the chance to open up, but this is a different pitch. We’ve seen today’s match as well. How do you see your middle order stacking up with the experts in the IPL? We’ve seen them. Do you think this is the right time for them to open up their arms and get some runs in?

[Kagiso Rabada:]

I actually haven’t really seen how the wicket played. I haven’t seen the game yet. But according to the nets, there’s going to be some turn, and it’s going to be a bit slow. But then I’m sure guys are getting to grips with how the wicket is playing and already forming game plans as to how they’re going to combat any plans that are formed against us.

[Reporter:]

As a team, when you play a qualifier like Nepal, what basically goes through the mind of a big cricketing nation like South Africa? And what’s your plan for tomorrow as a cricketing nation? How much South Africa knows about Nepal?

[Kagiso Rabada:]

To be honest, I don’t know a fair amount about how they play. But we have our analysis, and we will do our homework. But I know that they’ve been really playing more and more over the past number of years. And it’s good to see in the game of cricket that it’s growing. And like I said earlier, it’s not a game that we’re going to take lightly. Not at all. We can’t take it lightly.

[Reporter:]

You talked about 10 South African fans there. We met around 100 Nepali fans already in St. Vincent. So, you can expect their support as well.

[Kagiso Rabada:]

Ok

[Reporter:]

Just about the format of the tournament, 20 teams competing. What’s your take on the format? And we’ve seen some incredible upsets already. So, enjoying this, again, the gathering of so-called lesser nations. But they’re very much punching above their weight, it seems, and giving a really tough run to the full members.

[Reporter:]

I think, like I said earlier, cricket is growing. And not only by the amount of teams that are there, but also with a world event being hosted in America. The West Indies, the different countries in the West Indies are not foreign to hosting world events, but especially with the inclusion of the USA and teams like Uganda, teams like Oman, who have come on and had their chance to shine on the stage, shows that cricket’s growing and you look at, and you hope that, you really hope that the fan engagement can grow around the world and you hope that not all eyes are going to all eyes will be on the biggest teams But hopefully they can grow too and cricket can be real world event

[Reporter:]

Finally, about your batters you’ve had got an incredible batting lineup some next incredibly explosive players who’ve done really well around the world in various competitions. What’s the mood like in the batting camp, especially with the pitches perhaps not being too conducive? Are they getting itchy for the big scores? Do they really want to flex their muscles and hit those big sixes? And any suggestions from you to them as to how they can perhaps go on their business in the upcoming days?

[Kagiso Rabada:]

You want me to say this in a press conference? I think that the guys are really keen for the challenge and with us it’s just about winning. Whether we score 96 and win or whether we score 296 and win. At the end of the day, it’s about the W. And that’s what we’ve done so far. But I do expect that conditions are going to level up. Because you had the drop-in pitches in the USA. You never really know how they’re going to play. And we had an idea of how, a full idea of how they play. And now you’ve actually got squares that have been there for years, here in these venues. And you’ll probably see more competitive scores. And you look at the game between Australia and England, where 200 played 150. So, if you do bat well in these conditions, you can still reach 200. But you want to get a game and find pitches where you have enough in it for the bowlers and enough in it for the batters, because that’s essentially what a cricket game is. Otherwise, you might as well just call it batting or you might as well call it bowling.

But, the guys, you can’t really judge their form on wickets that we’ve just played on. As much as it’s not an excuse, but common sense would prevail. And you would say that you can’t really blame the batters. But in saying that, no one’s got any demons. Everyone’s moving forward. We play the conditions as we see them. And on our day, we know the sky’s a limit in terms of batting.