South Africa skipper Graeme Smith has said that his side is well prepared for the World Cup 2011, than the team he led to the tournament in 2007. Smith told that in 2007, we went there with the anticipation of winning the tournament, and put ourselves under so much pressure. Smith also believed his team was better prepared in terms of the personnel at his discarding, than the more experienced 2007 side. He said that when I looked back on the 2007 team, I thought we were a little bit too inflexible in terms of players and the squad. We are a lot more open-minded now; we have a lot more options. We had a lot of the same type of players in 2007. We had a lot of experience back then. We don't have a lot of World Cup experience in this team, but we have a lot of variety, a lot of energy. We have got pace, we have got spin and we have a lot of options, which is what I think we maybe lacked in 2007.
Skipper said that for me, Powerplay three is not so much about when you take it, but how you play it, the execution of it. He told that I personally would like to take it when guys are in and there's a good partnership going, rather than when guys are just starting out at the crease. We have tried a few things through some of the games and we have decided to make a gut decision on the day. What the guys in the middle need to discuss is their execution; what they need to do to get eight or nine runs an over.
If I talk about a bowling point of view, an aggressive mindset is always crucial. So often when you're bowling in the Powerplay, you back off because you think the team is going to be attacking you. So we want to be aggressive and look to pick up wickets, which is one way of using it to your advantage. That's something Australia did very well in 2007, they attacked that Powerplay whereas everyone else stood back.
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