Birmingham: On a day when everyone found batting to be tough on a slow track, Colin de Grandhomme was the only player to show fluent stroke-play and he credited his mantra of ‘keeping it simple’ for the knock.
De Grandhomme (60 off 47 balls) played a crucial role in New Zealand’s four-wicket victory over South Africa here Wednesday.
“I just tried to watch it as hard as I can. I tend to see the ball and hit the ball and it worked. That’s just my game and that’s how I play. It went well. I just try to do my job when I can. Some days it doesn’t work, today it did. Cricket is a simple game,” said De Grandhomme.
Chasing 242 in 49 overs in the rain-truncated match, New Zealand recovered from a mini slump at 137 for five, riding on a 91-run stand between skipper Kane Williamson (106 not out off 138 balls) and de Grandhomme, to reach home with three balls to spare.
De Grandhomme acknowledged that having a player of Williamson’s calibre alongside him made the task easier.
“Having Kane at the other end makes it a lot easier, knowing he’s a gun. He didn’t give me too much advice, I don’t take too much in,” he said.
“We had to take it to the last 10 overs so we had to build for 10 overs. Then we could see where we were. Luckily the run-rate didn’t get above seven so we were always still in the game,” explained De Grandhomme.
PTI
