Losses in Australia may benefit South Africa: AB de Villiers

Perth: AB de Villiers says a few one-day international defeats in South Africa’s five-match series against Australia may be the best thing for his side ahead of next year`s World Cup.

De Villiers will captain the Proteas in the opening game at the WACA on Friday and believes preparations for the showpiece tournament co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand are going to plan.

“Every game we play we want to win, but if it doesn’t work out that way, there are things to look at and it’s certainly not the end of the world,” De Villiers told reporters on Thursday.

“In a way, it is not a bad thing to lose a couple of cricket games over here so you at least know.”

South Africa are beyond the point of experimentation and are fine-tuning their game-plan against one of the World Cup favourites.

“We are doing what we can, covering all bases. It is not about doing something stupid, or trying to be over clever or too fancy, we just want to play proper cricket.

“Australia are a wonderful ODI team, they are very good in their own conditions, so for us to win here will mean a lot of confidence, a lot of momentum and a lot of belief.

“These three things are exactly what you need to win a World Cup.”

South Africa have famously carried a ‘choker’ tag with them for the best part of two decades having gone into previous World Cups among the favourites, only to find extraordinary ways to fail.

De Villiers dismissed suggestions there is mental scarring from those disappointments.

“There’s not much to say anymore, the guys that are here and were part of the past experiences know exactly what happened, so there is nothing to discuss at all except that we haven’t won a World Cup and we want to do that," he said.

“There’s no need to discuss anything about choking. We believe we are doing what’s best for the team now and if things go our way we’ll win the World Cup.”