DUBAI – During the training camp for his team before the tour to Pakistan in Dubai, the ICC World XI captain Faf Du Plessis urged his star studded squad to take things one ball at a time in Lahore.
“Don’t start thinking about the number of matches you will be playing in Pakistan already,” he told the squad in the first team meeting. “And it is definitely not advisable to start thinking about the number of days you would be staying there, let alone hours, minutes or seconds.”
“And don’t you start dividing the number of dollars you’re getting with the number of seconds. Just don’t.”
The South African skipper said the team should judge the security situation one ball at a time.
“Of course, if you think there are five days or three days, it’s scary,” he confessed. “Don’t even divide it into the 120 overs that we’ll be facing. Reduce it to one over – better still take it down to a single ball.”
He further elaborated that dealing with the security concerns one ball at a time would just be like playing cricket.
“We are taught to play every ball on the merit,” he said. “Now think of this as playing two balls per delivery.”