USA Coach Stuart Law on 19th over causing South Africa world cup loss
19/06/2024
Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, North Sound
19/06/2024
Sir Vivian Richards Stadium, North Sound
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00:00did run South Africa close, so just the overall look of the game?
00:04Yeah, look, you know, we can sit down and dissect it, but
00:07sitting here, again, a proud coach of what we've achieved.
00:12You know, to get to the Super 8s was a phenomenal effort, but to then
00:15you know, push South Africa, you know, you can see they'll get nervous towards
00:19the back end of our innings. We just lost Harmeet Singh just at the
00:23wrong moment there. That was a shame, but there's lots of
00:26things, areas we can improve on. You can tell the inexperience
00:30that we do have, particularly against the bigger teams, and that's okay.
00:33You only get experience by playing, and it's nice that, you know, that
00:37performance has warranted the South African coach coming over to me and
00:40saying we'd love to set up, you know, reciprocal series. So, you know
00:44what, it's a great, another
00:47great day. We didn't get the result, but we showed that we can compete
00:51against some of the best players in the world.
00:53Can I honestly ask you, like, when the campaign began,
00:57I'm sure, you know, deep inside you were confident you'd make the Super 8s, but
01:01how much planning did you do for the Caribbean, or was it like, okay, we'll see
01:05if we get there and then we'll start doing it? I mean, considering your
01:07experience here as well. Well, we've got boys who played here
01:11quite a bit as well. They play on this ground in, you know, local leagues
01:14over here in Antigua. This is my home for two years, so I know the ground
01:18pretty well and, you know, the conditions. So, it wasn't,
01:22you know, a great deal of planning needed. I think the big thing, we
01:27try not to focus too much on the opposition. We don't want to put, you
01:30know, the best players on a pedestal. We want to focus on
01:33what we're doing, and when we do that, we stick to our
01:36process. We play some really good cricket, you know. We've unearthed
01:39some, well, they're going to be rock stars, you know, the way that, you know,
01:43Sourabh Netravalkar is being treated at the moment.
01:46You know, Aaron Jones and their Harm 18 will probably join that
01:50crew as well. You know, Andre Skous, you know, what a great
01:53effort against the team, you know, of his, you know, of his birth, you know. So,
01:58it's, um, Sid here, you get emotional because
02:02you see what they do and you understand what they've had to put up with, you know,
02:07to get here, and to put on performances like this is
02:10just unbelievably great. And just to continue on how emotional it
02:14must feel for you, I mean, you've played and watched and coached cricket all
02:18around the world. I mean, here we are in Antigua and there
02:21were chants of USA in a World Cup match. Like, can you just
02:25get your head around, does it still feel a little surreal?
02:27Yeah, probably three years ago when someone said, you know, you'll be
02:31coaching USA one day, I would think you'd have rocks in your head, but
02:34you know, it's a challenge that I took on,
02:37and not because of any other reason other than it's a great opportunity to
02:42kickstart cricket in the US. And look, I think the
02:45last three months has been a great advert for
02:48cricket in the USA with, you know, that's only a third loss in,
02:52you know, 13 matches. So, it's pretty cool, you know,
02:56to sit here and to say that. It's great. I'm
02:59very proud of the players. They should be proud of their efforts as well.
03:04Just listening to the chants of USA, USA,
03:07like I said, in Antigua in a T20 World Cup, like,
03:10was that even strange? I know you're a coach and you're with the team, but
03:13just hearing that, like, did you even get a
03:16chance to do that when the game was on? No, mate, we've created a,
03:18you know, a support base now and, you know, it doesn't matter where they come
03:22from. If they want to see USA win, they'll be
03:26cheering for us. And it was great, you know, just the
03:30USA, USA coming out, you know, gets you a bit
03:34emotional again, but you know what? Great. Bring it on.
03:37Everyone loves an underdog and USA love winners, so we've got to get,
03:41we got one of those tags, we've got to get the other one going first.
03:45Stuart, talk about some of the players who've had experience over here, but how
03:49much of a challenge was that for the bowlers in particular today,
03:54especially finding kind of the right lines lengths when they had
03:57left-handers, right-handers on and that wind blowing across the stadium?
04:01Yeah, and the pressure of knowing if you miss, the South African boys hit it a
04:05mile, so that all added up together is, it's
04:09pretty tough. You know, sometimes the moment or the,
04:14you know, the situation gets the players who haven't dealt with it
04:18enough, but you know, I keep saying if we're not losing, we're learning.
04:22So we learn and get better. South Africa, the way they manipulated the ball to be
04:27hit to the biggest side into the wind, we just couldn't quite do that enough.
04:33After the 10-over mark, we started doing it better,
04:36but that first six to 10 overs, you know, we weren't as good as what we
04:40could have been, and that's okay. That's all right. We'll
04:44learn from it. You know, we'll point this out to the
04:47players before our next match. We take on West Indies in
04:50Barbados and, you know, we'll stand up again and we'll give our best
04:55effort against the other host nation. Do you
04:58think that that was the key difference between the
05:01two sides in just that use of the conditions in the end and
05:05now that kind of helped South Africa both with bat and
05:08ball? Yeah, and look, nerves play a big part in that.
05:11You know, knowing that if you miss the Quinton to cock, you know, back of a
05:14length, he's going to hit you, you know, 105 metres over mid-wicket.
05:18And he did it a few times, you know, so it's just
05:21part of the learning process we've got to go through.
05:25There's no, you can't, you can sit there and talk about it all you like, but you
05:28actually got to go out and live it. So hopefully our boys will take it in,
05:31learn from it and get better next game. How's Monak? Yeah, look, his shoulder's
05:36improving out of sight. We've got a tight turnaround here. We've
05:39got a flight booked pretty soon. We were going to have nets out the
05:43back, but we'll have to see how he goes against bowlers tomorrow. But
05:46he's definitely improved out of sight, which is great news for us.
05:49But no word on when he might be available? I haven't spoken to the
05:52medical team. We haven't seen him face, you know, fast bowlers yet. So once we
05:56do that, we'll be able to get a more, you know, clear
06:00picture of where he's at. And I did have another one as well. What
06:04was it? Do you want to come back to it?
06:09Just a word on Saurabh, you know, he's been a former captain of the team as well.
06:12He's been a player over, you know, the last five or six years who's come up in
06:16pretty close situations. What do you think sets him apart,
06:19you know, mentally, physically as a bowler and as, yeah, just
06:22another sort of head in the field that can help out with Aaron at the
06:25moment taking the captaincy? Yeah, look, I think he's
06:29he's very clear, very planned. He's a structured individual
06:33and he's very thorough in his preparation. So he
06:36goes through his bowling net and he'll tell me, right, this is the batter I'm
06:40bowling to, this is the field I've got set, I'm going to try and execute this
06:43ball. And he goes and does it and he'll go away,
06:46have a think and then come back and try and do something different, completely
06:49different plan. So look, he's very thorough in his
06:51preparation. He's a very intelligent, you know, young
06:55man. But also he's got total belief in
06:59what he can do and he just shows that under pressure he
07:02can hold his nerve and that's the key to being, you know, a
07:05great international player. You've got to come through those,
07:09you know, nerve-wracking situations out on top and he's,
07:12so far this tournament, he's done it more often than anyone, I think.
07:15He's been brilliant. And he's had a little bit more media attention here
07:20with the backstory and all of that. How has he kind of
07:24taken all that in and, yeah, how has he handled, you know, that front?
07:27Yeah, when I say he's intelligent, he asks a lot of questions
07:30and he sort of asks people, how do you deal with it? Because I've never had this
07:32before in my life and, you know, and that's a great thing.
07:36He's had to deal with different, you know, different
07:38aspect to, you know, professional cricket.
07:42He takes it in his stride. He doesn't get overwhelmed by
07:46too much. His thoughts are very clear and
07:50he knows what he wants to do and he doesn't take it
07:53lightly. He understands that the people out there want to see him play and do
07:57well but he also knows when to switch it off and,
08:00you know, get down to business and he's doing it well at the moment.
08:03I did remember, it was actually two. One was, how
08:07impressed have you been by the fielding and how much
08:10work has gone into what they've been showing out there on the field?
08:14Yeah, look, I think today we're, the only thing we're not doing well is moving fast
08:17between overs. It cost us against India and we're
08:21constantly putting ourselves under pressure doing that but,
08:24look, the fielding is one thing. We haven't done a great deal of fielding. We've
08:27played a lot of games and I think that that helps, you know,
08:30knowing angles, knowing where positions where fielders are going to be
08:34and they work that out pretty quickly. So that was what we spoke about
08:38individually to get in the hot zones, the better fielders in the hot zones etc
08:43and, you know, they've done it well but all I ask is,
08:46you know, good energy, good attitude and 100% effort for
08:4920 overs and the boys go out and do what they do. Some do it better than
08:53others but, you know, it's, as a team we're fielding
08:57and in the field we're pretty good. And just a bit sort of on from what
09:01Bullock was saying, I mean, we've seen clips of
09:04Team USA being brought up in national security
09:07briefings at the White House. Now, come on, that,
09:11is that blowing your mind and blowing the players' minds?
09:14Oh look, it's, you know, any publicity is great publicity but
09:18when you've got the the House Speaker talking on the White House lawn
09:23addressing the nation and where the front and centre it's
09:26it's pretty awesome. So look, I know the USA is very proud of,
09:31you know, anything USA and we're not making a massive name for ourselves just
09:36yet but we're on the way, you know, and hopefully in the next,
09:38you know, two years our success can grow and if it grows it could get, you know,
09:44very, very, you know, very good let's say.
09:48And just finally from me, I mean you spoke about Harmeet Singh and
09:51I mean those of us who covered Mumbai cricket 17 years ago he was the 15 year
09:55old wonder kid, like he was supposed to be the
09:57next Bishan Singh Bedi and here he is like,
10:00you know, it's been a remarkable story his life and like here he's playing for
10:03the US and hitting big sixes like, you know, off
10:06of Shamsi and those like, so just his journey and like you spoke a lot about
10:10Saurabh, like what it's been like to work with him.
10:14Harry's great, I love him, he's a fighter, you know, and
10:18I know the north of England, you know, the Sikhs particularly, they have that,
10:21you know, extra, you know, character about them, they're
10:25hard as nails and they're generally big, big people so
10:29he's been brilliant mate, you know, he's
10:32I thought he bowled better than he batted today,
10:35you know, even though he batted really well, I thought he bowling was
10:38outstanding, he's always good in the field, he gives his effort but he's
10:43also great in team meetings where he speaks up and
10:46he has different plans and tells, encourages the players, right, this is
10:49what we need to do for this and so he's one of our key players, he
10:53really is and his performance is again under
10:56pressure, he hasn't done it just today, he's done it a few times
10:59already in my short term and he hits the ball clean when he's
11:03going, he's very hard to stop, one of those players hits the ball in
11:06funny areas when he bats, so you set a field and he could hit
11:10somewhere completely different, unfortunately he got out when he did
11:14today because I think we might have even got a little closer
11:17but to get to where we was, you know, today, my instructions was look, if we
11:21can't win it, let's get as close as we can,
11:23we'll help our net run rate so if we, you know, pull off two wins in the next
11:27two games, we're pretty close.