SA Cricket magazine spoke exclusively to Scotland’s in-form World Cup batsman Kyle Coetzer, whose connection to South Africa is alive and well – and will soon have the chance to rekindle yesteryear’s success with Richard Levi and Rory Kleinveldt.
SAC: Born in Aberdeen with the surname Coetzer, the South African connection is evident…
KC: My mom is from Grahamstown and my dad went to Union High School in the Eastern Cape. I’ve never actually lived in South Africa, but must have spent about three years there in total, playing cricket there during Scotland’s winter and the South African summer, for Cape Town Cricket Club in particular.
SAC: Smiting England with a commanding 71 in Scotland’s second 2015 World Cup Pool A fixture must have brought some consolation in defeat…
KC: It’s always nice to get a few runs under the belt from the start, but the disappointing thing was us not playing up to our full potential, especially against England. It’s always a fixture we like to play and we don’t get the opportunity to play against them very often – we would liked to have put in that little bit more of a performance and push them harder.
SAC: A hefty 156 against Bangladesh, on a relatively small field in Nelson, could have been turned into a Chris Gayle-esque double-ton…
KC: The boundaries were fairly short and the wind was going in one direction, so I was definitely trying to target those boundaries. Had I managed to keep the one that I got to down, and spent another couple of overs targeting those boundaries, you never know what would have happened from there. But it was a bit of mixed emotions on that day, as those runs from me didn’t manage to get us over the line.
SAC: You certainly reaped the benefits of a fine stretch of form during October 2014’s acclimatisation tour of New Zealand, which included a great century against Otago…
KC: That’s what it is all about – getting runs behind your name is key for any player going into an event like the World Cup. Getting those runs, especially getting them in those New Zealand conditions, was always going to put me into a good position ahead of the World Cup.
SAC: Injury shortly before the World Cup coincided with your loss of the captaincy to Preston Mommsen…
KC: I took a bit of a hit to my pride, I guess. It was something I always wanted to do – and I gained a lot of experience through doing it. Things can change, though, and you have to be prepared for your job. Not having the captaincy definitely let me focus more on the World Cup more – and enjoy it more. There is definitely more pressure when you are captain. But I was more than happy to play under Preston, who has done a great job. Being part of the squad is obviously massively important for me.
SAC: While negatives are reasonably easy to acknowledge after five or six successive defeats, can you pinpoint some positives from Scotland’s 2015 World Cup campaign?
KC: The biggest thing is the huge amount of belief we will take from this tour. We are only going to move forward after this, simply because we have gained so much from the games. It’s only six matches that we played, but it’s more ODIs than we sometimes play in a year. The level of competition, the quality, just the belief that we are able to compete – those are big factors. Until you play against some of these international sides, you see them on television and you wonder if you will manage against them. You always have questions about whether you actually can handle yourself, but we showed we can on a number of occasions. Against Bangladesh, against the West Indies in the warm-up game, against New Zealand earlier in the tournament – while we lost, these games showed us that we have the belief and we can do it. We will put a few other things in place and we will do even better.
SAC: The International Cricket Council, meanwhile, are encountering stiff resistance amid a very questionable bid to prevent the Associate teams playing in the 2019 World Cup…
KC: We all feel a little bit hard done by because all the hard work we have put in over the years, to get ourselves to where we are, might now get cut short. It has been great to see the support of certain greats coming out and saying this is not right. All four of the Associate teams, we have definitely put in the performances, so it is only going to strengthen our case. I don’t know whether or not the ICC will change the decision, but we have taken massive strides – and all we can do is hold our heads up and show we are good for it.
SAC: The start of the 2015 English county season beckons for your after the World Cup, namely with Northamptonshire…
KC: It has been an intense period for me. I have only spent about 10 days at home in the winter season. Northants are currently in Barbados on their pre-season tour and I will join up with them back in England after a bit of a break. It is a bit of an interesting one, because I’m not a certain starter. It’s a bit of a complex situation at the moment, so hopefully I will get a chance to force my way back into the line-up.
SAC: Northants have signed South Africans Richard Levi and Rory Kleinveldt…
KC: I played with Richard when we won the Friends Life t20 in 2013. I opened the batting with him the entire tournament before I got injured before the final. I also played with Rory a lot during my days at the Western Province academy, when I was about 18 or 19 years old.
SAC: Demotion to the second division of the County Championship in 2014 has left plenty of correction required in 2015…
KC: The preparation seems to have gone well, with no stone left unturned, according to some of the reports I have been hearing. The guys have really been working on the aspects that sometimes are missed. There are elements of luck to be considered, too. It’s not like we didn’t prepare in the previous season, we just got into a poor run of form and struggled to get out of it. There wasn’t really anyone standing out and winning games for us. You need two or three men in the top or middle order to be scoring 1000 runs in a season – and two of the bowlers to get upward of 50 wickets. If that’s not happening, you are going to have tough season. We just have to back our ability. We have nothing to fear, so to speak, after being demoted to the second division. We just have to dig in, dig deep.
By Jonhenry Wilson
