The results you would like to be different, but I’m sure after spending so much time away from the pitch you haven’t played much in recent months. That’s not the worst performance.
(Harsh Thacker:)
Yeah, I think it could have been a little better. I feel like we had a training camp in Sri Lanka for the last month or so before we got here. But I think what we learned today was you know South Africa have one of the best pace attacks in the world with all four guys pulling probably 140 plus. So there are a lot of good insights here for us. Yes, we could have played better with the ball and maybe restricted them to 180 and with the bat, I think we’re in the middle, I mean obviously we lost a lot of wickets in the beginning, but in the middle I felt like me, maybe if I didn’t play – I think I got it, the pace was fine for me. I think it was a slower ball that I played a few dots with. So just little things that we can learn from but obviously playing against South Africa is a huge boost for a country like Canada you know and it’s only going to help us going forward.
(Reporter:)
Some tough moments in the game – How do you take what you learned today and go into the next game?
(Harsh Thacker:)
Like I said, there’s a lot to take in, a lot of positives from today. You know Navi’s innings and the way we built the innings after losing four wickets. Even with the ball I don’t think we were that bad at the start. Yes, maybe we could have taken that De Kock catch earlier. Maybe things were a little different. As I said, this is the first time we are playing South Africa in a T20 international. So it’s unfair and we haven’t played an international match for seven months. So yes, we could have done better. But we will take a lot of positives from it going into the UAE game and the games ahead.
(Reporter:)
Something about your bowling attack. Last three overs, almost 50 runs conceded. You could have kept them under 200 if you could have avoided that.
(Harsh Thacker:)
Like I said, yes, we could have done better. I honestly think the pitchers tried their best. There are a lot of plans that have been made and also come to fruition. Sometimes I felt like you just played fantastic shots. Like you had Tristan Stubbs and David Miller who were some of the most dangerous batsmen in the world. So yes, we could have done better. We will plan better for the next match and come back with a better performance.
(Reporter:)
You said you haven’t played a T20 international for the last seven months. You must qualify by then. So what was the reason not to play when you knew you were going to the World Cup and the big teams? So why wasn’t it done? Why haven’t you all played any matches or even prelims?
(Harsh Thacker:)
It’s not, like, I can’t control it. As a player, I don’t choose the series we play against. It’s something we can talk about going into the future. If we do another World Cup, we can talk about playing more series. As I said, we went to a camp in Sri Lanka where we played against quality Sri Lankan A teams and I think we played about four or five games there. We played a game against Oman, also a practice game in Sri Lanka, and then we had two warm-up games here. But yeah, I agree we could have played maybe a streak here and there in the winter, but it’s not something I can control.
(Reporter:)
Can you tell us about your connection with Gujarat?
(Harsh Thacker:)
Actually I was born in Ahmedabad so I am coming back to Ahmedabad. I was born here when I was born in Ahmedabad, I was born near Maninagar and I moved out of Ahmedabad when I was nine years old. So it’s like a homecoming for me and my family is excited about it too.
(Reporter:)
You mentioned De Kock’s catch but we saw three other very nice catches from your team. So given that you all don’t have much cricket management, how do you hone those skills? And can you talk a little bit about how you’re doing with your skills and practice in the field?
(Harsh Thacker:)
I think we are not bad on the pitch today. I think we made some great catches. The ground field could have been a bit better. Obviously not at the level we would like to have. I mean, I know we can do better than this, but it’s just about executing at the right time in a moment like this. You know we don’t play the World Cup every year, it comes once every two years for us, so we want to take this opportunity to show the world that Canada has talented players and that’s what we’re trying to do, yeah, next game we’ll talk to the coach, we’ll talk to the coaches, we’ll talk at the end and see how we can improve.