Cape Town – Faf du Plessis, who will lead the Proteas at this year’s World Cup, believes his team must forget about failure as they attempt to win world cricket’s most prestigious competition for the first time. 

In previous tournaments, Du Plessis believes that the Proteas have failed simply because they placed too much pressure on themselves. This time, however, they will focus on enjoying their cricket. 

“In previous World Cups, we wanted to do Superman things. We thought we had to be more special, we had to do something more than we usually do, and we did not do what was good enough before. We haven’t always got that right in the past, to play our best cricket at the World Cup, because we put so much pressure on ourselves. We want to just focus on enjoying our cricket,” said Du Plessis as his team jetted out from South Africa for the tournament. 

Du Plessis wants his charges to not fear failure as they navigate their way through the tournament and this means playing freely and each player to their own unique strengths. 

“There’s a reason why we want the guys to play freely,  because we don’t want them to have a fear of failure, which is what the World Cup is for some of them. Our success in England over the next couple of months depends on how well we release that aspect of our play,  we need that for the team to be at our best. Each player needs to find out his own strengths,” said Du Plessis. 

South Africa open their World Cup against hosts England on May, 30.