Tuesday 17 March 2015 13:12, UK
AB de Villiers is sure South Africa will shed their World Cup 'chokers' tag against Sri Lanka in the early hours of Wednesday.
The South Africans are making their seventh tournament appearance but are yet to win a straight knockout tie despite twice reaching the semi-finals.
Their group stage record was mixed, two scores of 400-plus counter-balanced by defeats to India and Pakistan that raised doubts about their ability to go all the way this year.
But De Villiers, who gave his players the day off on the eve of the game, is convinced South Africa can put those concerns to bed at the Sydney Cricket Ground in the tournament's first quarter-final.
"All I can say is we're not going to choke," said the captain, back at the scene of his 66-ball 162 against West Indies. "We're going to play a good game of cricket and come out on top. Simple.
"How do we approach it? We think we've just got to try and play a good game of cricket. I think it's important to focus on what we've been doing well and try and do that. We have certain strengths we like to focus on and not focus too much on the opposition.
"We've got to keep things as simple as possible. Strike with the new ball, try and bowl them out, if we bat first get a big total and put them under pressure."
Asked about those group-stage defeats he said: "I don't believe we've been awful, I feel we've had a pretty decent tournament so far, finished second in the log.
"We had a tough game against India, where things could have been different, I believe. That's about it. Other than that, we've played some good cricket. Against Pakistan, I wasn't too upset about that except for the fact we didn't show enough fight with the bat. But we bowled exceptionally well.
"We have to win on Wednesday. We've lost two games, but we are pretty much on track. That's what it comes down to, no one is going to ask us if we played exceptional cricket when we win the World Cup. We are just going to say that 'we won the Cup'."
The match has been billed by some as a contest between De Villiers and Kumar Sangakkara, third and first on the list of leading run-scorers at this year's World Cup.
But De Villiers said: "To be very honest, and I hope you don't take it the wrong way, I couldn't care less about him or me. I just want to win the game of cricket. If it's our No 11 batsman who wins the game for us, so be it. I just want to find a way to win."
Watch South Africa v Sri Lanka live on Sky Sports World Cup from 3am on Wednesday.
