{"id":84427,"date":"2015-03-23T16:15:28","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T14:15:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/germistoncitynews.co.za\/84427\/south-africas-proteafire-fuels-proteas\/"},"modified":"2015-03-23T16:15:28","modified_gmt":"2015-03-23T14:15:28","slug":"south-africas-proteafire-fuels-proteas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/sports-news\/2015\/03\/23\/south-africas-proteafire-fuels-proteas\/","title":{"rendered":"South Africa\u2019s #ProteaFire fuels Proteas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>AB de Villiers says the weight of the nation will be a motivating factor for his team in their ICC Cricket World Cup semi-final against New Zealand at Eden Park on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The Proteas have the opportunity to feature in their first ever World Cup final, but will need to get past a New Zealand side riding on good form and home-ground advantage.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>\u201cThe squad is full of self-confidence and I feel that we are in a good space,\u201d De Villiers said to the media at Eden Park on Monday.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI have enjoyed the journey to this moment even with the ups and downs. There have been moments during the competition where we have been on top and other moments where we have been poor.<\/p><div class=\"stream-item stream-item-in-post stream-item-inline-post aligncenter\"><\/div>\n<p>\u201cAll of those combinations have put us in a position that has made us feel confident ahead of tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The skipper feels the squad enters the match with no emotional baggage but rather with a clear focus and motive; to win the trophy for South Africa.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe know that there is a lot of expectation from back home,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is also expectation from us as well. It\u2019s a wonderful opportunity to make a big difference, to make South Africa a better place.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe are playing for the bigger picture tomorrow, not just for ourselves; it\u2019s for the entire nation.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>De Villiers says they have done their preparation on all 15 members of New Zealand\u2019s squad, but would rather place more emphasis on their own preparation and strengths.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt would be silly to focus too much on the cricket they have played because they have played really well,\u201d he said of New Zealand.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI personally don\u2019t like to focus too much on the opposition. I believe that if we play to our full potential nobody is going to stop us in this tournament.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt\u2019s more important for me to get the guys in a good space; to make sure they are confident mentally, fresh physically because I know that if we rock up here and play good cricket we will end up on top.\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"stream-item stream-item-below-post-content\">\n<div class='tenancy_slot tenancy_slot_1 jannah_ad' style='display: none;' data-query-id='bd191b1a775f40fd37062504b22bf5ec'><\/div>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>When the Proteas take on New Zealand in the first semi final, the team will be driven by the #ProteaFire back home. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":42,"featured_media":84428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"hasGravity":false,"cxt_article_byline":"","cxt_disable_google_ads":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6548,3],"tags":[5587,5589,6558,6956,6553,5896,2362],"class_list":["post-84427","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cricket-world-cup-2015","category-sports-news","tag-ab-de-villiers","tag-cricket-south-africa","tag-icc-cricket-world-cup","tag-new-zealand","tag-proteafire","tag-proteas","tag-south-africa"],"amp_enabled":true,"category_labels":{"Category":"Sport","SubCategory":"Cricket World Cup"},"tag_labels":["ab de villiers","Cricket South Africa","icc cricket world cup","New Zealand","ProteaFire","Proteas","South Africa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84427","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/42"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=84427"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84427\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/develop.citizen.co.za\/germiston-city-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}