<\/p>\n
PUNE: New Zealand captain Tom Latham hopes to summon the fighting spirit of the All Blacks when his side face fellow ICC World Cup semi-final contenders South Africa in Pune on Wednesday.<\/p>\n The match comes just days after South Africa edged New Zealand by a point in a dramatic Rugby World Cup final in Paris, where the beaten All Blacks had to play most of the game a man down after skipper Sam Cane was sent off.<\/p>\n Latham\u2019s men also suffered a narrow defeat last time out, going down by five runs against Australia after just failing to chase down a huge target of 389.<\/p>\n \u201cThat was obviously a fantastic game of rugby,\u201d Latham told a pre-match press conference on Tuesday.<\/p>\n \u201cBut I guess you look at the All Blacks as a whole, they played some great rugby throughout the World Cup.\u201d<\/p>\n He added: \u201cI think you look at the final and I guess the Kiwi way is we look to scrap the whole way, obviously faced with a little bit of adversity in terms of being down to 14 men.<\/p>\n \u201cI guess it\u2019s something we talk about in our team as well \u2014 we scrap right to the end regardless of the situation.<\/p>\n \u201cI think we showed that the other night as well, taking the game as deep as we can and if we can do that, then hopefully that gives ourselves a good chance towards the back end of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n As for the match in front of his side, Latham said New Zealand would face a \u201creally hot\u201d South Africa, with their lone defeat so far this World Cup a shock loss to the Netherlands.<\/p>\n \u201cSouth Africa, they\u2019re running really hot at the moment,\u201d said Latham.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd they\u2019ve got a lot of power throughout the whole line-up.\u201d But he added: \u201cWe certainly know we\u2019ve got a world-class bowling attack as well\u2026It\u2019s going to be a great contest tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n New Zealand still have injury doubts over regular captain and star batsman Kane Williamson (thumb), fast bowler Lockie Ferguson (Achilles) and all-rounder Mark Chapman (calf).<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Rassie van der Dussen insisted South Africa are carrying no World Cup baggage even if their long-suffering fans may sometimes feel they are \u201cwatching a movie they\u2019ve seen before\u201d.<\/p>\n South Africa, despite teams featuring the likes of Allan Donald, Jonty Rhodes, Herschelle Gibbs, Lance Klusener and A.B. de Villiers, have yet to win the World Cup since their post-apartheid entry into the event in 1992.<\/p>\n The manner of South Africa\u2019s exits has led to accusations of \u201cchoking\u201d and their critics were ready with fresh suggestions of mental frailty following a shock loss to the Netherlands earlier in this edition.<\/p>\n But that reverse remains South Africa\u2019s lone defeat so far in six World Cup games in India, with the Proteas just holding their nerve to defeat Pakistan by one wicket last time out.<\/p>\n Van der Dussen, asked during a pre-match press conference in Pune on Tuesday if South Africa were indeed carrying any \u201cbaggage\u201d, replied: \u201cNo, I suppose it\u2019s about just acknowledging and accepting it.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter that Dutch game, we took a lot of flak from back home and certainly in the media as well. There\u2019s no use in delving too much into it. You\u2019ve just got to accept it and move on.\u201d<\/p>\n The 34-year-old batsman added: \u201cYou realise that there\u2019s people at home and fans that have been really scarred by the previous performances of South Africa at World Cups.<\/p>\n \u201cYou can\u2019t really criticise them for feeling that way, for the criticism to come from, I suppose, a place of hurt where they\u2019ve seen that movie before.\u201d<\/p>\n Even so, he insisted: \u201cBut personally, and I think it goes for probably most of the people in our squad and management team, that we haven\u2019t lived that.<\/p>\n \u201cSo, it\u2019s not really applicable to us.\u201d<\/p>\n Published in Dawn, November 1st, 2023<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" NEW ZEALAND pacer Trent Boult in action during a practice session at the Maharashtra Cricket Association Stadium on Tuesday.\u2014AFP PUNE: New Zealand captain Tom Latham hopes to summon the fighting spirit of the All Blacks when his side face fellow ICC World Cup semi-final contenders South Africa in Pune on Wednesday. The match comes just […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":20346,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/i.dawn.com\/large\/2023\/11\/01104228286cfd1.jpg?r=104233","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pakistan"],"acf":[],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20345"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20345\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pakistaninewspaperlist.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}South Africa have no World Cup \u2018choking\u2019 hangover<\/h2>\n