Here’s the full transcript of Ryan Burl’s press conference before the India vs Zimbabwe Super 8 match
[Reporter:]
Must win match for tomorrow. How do you fancy your chances against India?
[Ryan Burl:]
Yeah you’re right, it is a must win match for us, it’s also a must win game for India. There’s obviously a lot at stake here, being a World Cup game and if we are to progress to the semi-finals, we both want to look at winning tomorrow’s game. So I think we are both excited. Obviously we don’t get to play India a lot, so it’s something that we really have been looking forward to and we will grab the opportunity with both hands.
[Reporter:]
Playing in India against India on a wicket which is more known to them, what will be the biggest challenge for your team?
[Ryan Burl:]
I mean, just like you said, playing India in India is a challenge in itself. They obviously got a home ground advantage, but the added pressure of both teams needing to win tomorrow’s game, Pressure does funny things to teams. And obviously it being a World Cup, there’s that added pressure as well. So yeah, I mean, we’ve obviously got our processes that we want to go through. And hopefully we can execute those tomorrow.
[Reporter:]
Of course, India have found a bit of difficulties against finger spinners and Zimbabwe have some quality spinners. So have you guys personally watched those dismissals where India have struggled against off spin, finger spin And are you looking to deploy the same tactics tomorrow here in Chennai?
[Ryan Burl:]
First of all, thank you for acknowledging that Zimbabwe’s got some quality spinners. That’s obviously a nice compliment. No, obviously, we’re doing a lot of our homework. It’s not that We’re doing more homework or less homework just because it’s India. We take each game as it comes. I won’t give away too many secrets how we’re going to approach tomorrow, but yeah, obviously what you have said is spot on and it is something that we are aware of.
[Reporter:]
Sikandar got a knock in the other game, quite a hard knock. So is he fit to play tomorrow? And with that big a loss, how difficult is it to probably come back from that bigger loss and play against a team like India.
[Ryan Burl:]
Sikandar Raza is 100% playing. Good luck telling him that he’s not going to play against India. Yeah, he’s going to be playing.
[Reporter:]
Can you just talk us about the strength and the variety in your bowling attack? You’ve got these two tall bowlers in Blessing and Richards now fit again. Again, we sort of spoke upon your spinners, Raza can bowl mystery spin, you can bowl leg spin, Graeme is also there. So can you just talk us about the depth in this attack which could probably come good in any pitch irrespective of the conditions?
[Ryan Burl:]
Yeah, I think like you said there, we’ve obviously got a lot of options and that’s probably one of the advantages of the Zimbabwe lineup is we’ve got left arm seamer, right arm seamer, we’ve got couple leg spinners, we’ve got an off spinner, we’ve got a left arm offie. So we do have quite a lot of depth and I think it will probably just come down to what are the match-ups depending on the batters that are out there at the time and obviously the combinations that we do look to go for.
[Reporter:]
Yeah, Ryan, just wanted to talk about the resurgence of Zimbabwe cricket in this tournament, the way you guys are playing. Would you like to credit the year that has lead up to this tournament? Like you played, I know that this is a different format, but I think you guys played two test matches. I think that’s more than India. You played quality opponents like India in Zimbabwe, South Africa, New Zealand. So this leading up to this tournament, do you think that having played these quality opponents has led to your success?
[Ryan Burl:]
Yes, definitely. I think obviously playing high quality opponents regularly, as well as having a very good bunch of players buying into what I would like to believe a good blueprint and a good process. But obviously, you still got to execute on the day. So I think it’s a combination of everything put together and obviously now reaping the rewards.
[Reporter:]
I’m hearing that there’s going to be a fair bit of dew tomorrow in the evening. What kind of strategy do you have and have you experienced playing under any dew before?
[Ryan Burl:]
Yes, Definitely. We’ve obviously played a lot of night games. We played in Pakistan a few months ago where dew was a big factor, where obviously as a bowling unit you try and change the ball as often as you can because it does get a little bit difficult to bowl with. And yeah, it’s obviously something that we have come into this game prepared for. Ultimately, at the end of the day, though, you’ve got to still go and execute. As much as you are prepared, you have to execute on the day.
[Reporter:]
How important is adaptability for you guys? Because the kind of wickets you’re getting in Colombo, and then after that coming to Mumbai, it’s a completely different kind of wicket there. And then coming to Chennai, can you talk us about this, how your preparations, and the plannings, and the tactics, and your bowling attack will differ from a Colombo, to a Mumbai, and to Chennai, because three completely different kind of surfaces.
[Ryan Burl:]
Yeah, it’s a good point. Good question as well. Obviously, the main difference coming here to India is going to be the boundary sizes in comparison to Premadasa, and Kandy, and SAC, the three grounds there in Sri Lanka. So dimensions play a big part of it and I think obviously you saw the game against West Indies where the ball does come on a lot better here in India. So it is probably a lot more free-flowing. A lot more boundaries are expected to be hit. There’s obviously different methods on how you want to go about it. Whereas in Sri Lanka, we probably try to keep as many wickets up top as possible, grind through the middle and then go hard at the back end. But then again saying that obviously every team’s got their strengths, whereas you play the Caribbeans, they’ve got that firepower and the flair where they almost go from ball one.. Obviously India’s also got that firepower where they obviously go really hard in the power play and if they don’t lose wickets, they’ve got guys that can go hard throughout. So I think obviously looking to try and take wickets. Taking wickets is obviously one of the biggest momentum breakers and obviously kills their strike rates and economy. So that’s obviously one way of going about it. It’s obviously, we don’t know exactly what the wicket’s going to do. So it’s about being adaptable and taking that into account. But it’s making sure that we can do that as quick as possible and not just try and adapt after 15 – 20 overs where it can be too late and then you’re chasing too many or you haven’t put enough on the board.
[Reporter:]
You all took down Sri Lanka in Sri Lanka, so what can you learn from that about how to silence a home crowd and how to go about?
[Ryan Burl:]
It will be quite dangerous to answer how I am going to silence India in India. No, I mean obviously playing against Sri Lanka and Sri Lanka with home ground advantage is very difficult. But ultimately how we approach tomorrow’s game is going to be no different to how we’ve approached the games before in the sense that we have our processes, we’ve got our game plan, yes it does change here and there according to the conditions and your opponents but ultimately we want to play the game that we know how to play and we have found a lot of success doing it that way. So we would obviously want to focus on as much as what our strengths are but taking into account the challenges that the opposition does present.
[Reporter:]
Can you speak about Blessing, how he has been one of your standout bowlers this World Cup and his action and variation, how does it make it so effective in T20 format?
[Ryan Burl:]
I mean being 6 foot 9 does help. I have to give a lot more credit to Blessing than he has received, because he’s been out for about four to six months prior to this tournament. And he obviously had a lot of doubts coming in with his own body and how he was feeling and stuff like that. The success that he has had with the ball has been amazing. It’s not something that has only just come about now. He has been doing this in international cricket previously. He’s obviously someone that we really do, we’re really happy having in our squad. He’s one of those bowlers that’s obviously 6’9″, and he does kind of come a little bit from beyond the perpendicular. So jagging the ball back into the righties and across the lefties with that steep bounce does propose quite a lot of a challenge for the batters. So I’m a lot happier knowing that he’s on my team and not on the opposition.
[Reporter:]
Just a follow-up, why was he out for four minutes?
[Ryan Burl:]
He had a back injury.
[Reporter:]
Unbeaten in the group stages and then had a defeat in Mumbai. So how has the group reacted to that and what are the learnings from that game as you look forward facing India now?
[Ryan Burl:]
To be honest, I think we can only take positives from that defeat. It sounds weird, but we hadn’t really had a bad game until then. So there is massive learnings in that. And in saying that, India obviously also had their bad game against South Africa. So we’re both looking to bounce back, and no better place than to do that tomorrow.
[Reporter:]
Ryan, you spoke about being aware of, say, India not being very good against spin in the tournament so far, but also there is a bit of contrast in the fact that this particular venue has not been the best for spinners either. It’s like it has the worst strike rate and average for spinners. How do you balance that out when you sort of go in as a bowling attack with so much variety in spin?
[Ryan Burl:]
I never said India are bad at spin, you guys did. Like I said before, obviously it’s something that we have taken into account, obviously we’ve done our homework and it’s something that we would be silly to ignore going into tomorrow’s game. It’s also about the match-ups, you know, what are their strengths, what are our strengths and how can we expose maybe any small little advantages that we have in our favour. So, yeah, it’s something that we do have to take into account.
[Reporter:]
How important will be the toss tomorrow? Because in the Mumbai we saw that after winning the toss you decided to bowl first because you knowing that the West Indies have a very good batsman and the long batting line the same thing is here also and What will be how much it will be important for you if you win the toss, whether going for chase or going to score more?
[Ryan Burl:]
Yeah, it’s a good point, to be honest. I think it kind of addresses the question that the lady asked at the beginning, in the sense of how does dew play a part in the toss. Obviously maximizing bowling first does help with the dew factor coming in because no one really wants to bowl at the back end in the second innings with a slippery ball. So It will take a part of the match. But then again, maybe we want to bat first, maybe we want to ball first. It also depends on what our strengths are. But again, we are aware of the dew factor, which is probably more prominent here in Chennai than it is in Mumbai.
