Piedt much prefers red ball cricket to T20s

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South Africa spinner Dane Piedt has one Test to his name, and is playing for the Cape Cobras at the Champions League T20, but is already sure his future lies with the red ball, after a superb start.

Piedt made his Test debut against Zimbabwe in Harare recently, and took eight wickets to earn the Man of the Match gong. While the opposition wasn’t the most stringent, he says he felt very much at home in the format.

He told the Cape Times of being handed his cap: “No one will ever, ever realise. I can’t describe that feeling. I think there have been 83 players before me and each one of us have experienced that. Nobody can ever take that feeling away from you.

“It’s difficult to put that into words. But the moment that first ball was bowled, that cap was mine and nobody can ever take it away from you! Best feeling of my life and I will cherish it forever.”

He was then asked if he saw himself playing one-dayers, and he said: “I have been asked that a lot. I do want to, but the main thing for me now to do is to focus on red-ball cricket. Consistent performances with the red ball will keep me around the one-day squad.

“I am not really a big fan of Twenty20, but if it’s there I would like to play. I want to put in big performances for our country’s Test team and help us remain at number one in the Test arena.

“I think that’s the main thing that goes around the team that we want to dominate Test cricket and win series consistently against the best teams in the world.

West Indies spinner Sunil Narine was the main drawcard for the Cobras in the Ram Slam T20 last season, so Piedt missed a few matches, but he still learned a lot from the Kolkata star.

He explained: “I am more a guy that steals with the eye and see what I can implement. I wouldn’t really ask much, but would rather watch. He is not the same type of bowler that I am.

“He delivers the ball from a bit higher and spins the ball enough either way to bamboozle the batsman. I try to work on the lengths that he is bowling, the fields that he sets. I have developed my own carrom ball that is fairly consistent now.

“So, it is more about the fields that he has to that type of delivery. No mid-wicket, two points, it is small things like that. He actually changes his fields, to show the delivery he is bowling.

“I also take into account the pressure of situations that he is bowling at, and how he deals with that than actual technical things.”

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