Victory for South Africa in the World Test Championship final would be “massive for the country” as they bid to shed their tag as professional sport’s serial bottlers, according to batting coach Ashwell Prince.
They head into day four of the match at Lord’s with 69 runs needed to beat Australia and with eight wickets still in hand.
South Africa opener Aiden Markram will resume unbeaten on 102 alongside skipper Temba Bavuma, who is 65 not out, after the pair spearheaded a dominant batting display on Friday.
Should the Proteas wrap up the win it would go a long way towards banishing a nickname they have come to despise: chokers.
In 18 previous one-day international and T20 World Cups, South Africa’s men’s team have reached a solitary final, having lost 10 of their 12 knockout matches across both competitions.
That final appearance was in last year’s T20 World Cup in the Caribbean where they lost to India when victory seemed to be within their grasp.
Prince acknowledged he was “not sure how I’m going to sleep” with the tantalising prospect of winning the third iteration of the WTC title so real.
“This would be massive for our country,” Prince told BBC Test Match Special, “both in terms of what we want to do in Test match cricket and what we want to achieve going forward.
“We’ve fallen short in some white-ball competitions with teams that have had very good chances of getting over the line, possibly favourites at times.
“But at the moment, history says we haven’t done it yet, so we have got to knuckle down.”
Prince, who played 66 Tests for South Africa between 2002 and 2011, said the players will not do anything differently to prepare for the fourth day as he called Markram “someone for the big occasion”.
“The coaches will make sure the guys stick to our processes, stay focused, get the job done,” Prince added.
“It’s a big day, but you don’t want to do anything different just because.
“The most important thing is to remain in the moment, stay in the moment and obviously from a batting point of view, that means play one ball at a time.”
