Losing Harmeet Singh at wrong time was a shame: Stuart Law on USA's loss vs SA

It runs South Africa close. So just just just the overall look of the gate. Yeah. Look, you know, we we can sit down and dissect it. But sitting here again, a proud coach of what what we've achieved, you know, to get to the Super Eights was a phenomenal effort. But to then, you know, push South Africa. You know, though, though you can see they'll get nervous towards the back end of their innings. We just lost Harmit Singh just at the wrong moment there. That was a shame. But there's lots of things we areas we can improve on where you can tell the inexperience that we we do have, particularly against the bigger teams. And that's OK. You only get experienced by playing. And it's nice that, you know, that performance has warranted the South African coach coming over to me and saying we'd love to set up, you know, reciprocal series. So you know what, it's it, it's a, it's a great, another, another great day. We didn't get the result, but we showed that we can compete against some of the best players in the world. I mean, can I honestly ask you like when, when the campaign began, I'm sure you know, deep inside you were confident you'd make the Super race. But how much planning did you do for the Caribbean or, or was it like, OK, we'll see if we get there and then we'll start doing it. I mean, considering your experience here as well? Well, we got boys who played here quite a bit as well. They play on this ground in, you know, local leagues over here in Antigua. This is my home for two years. So I know the ground pretty well and, you know, the conditions. So look, it wasn't, you know, great deal of planning needed. I think the big thing we, we, we try not to focus too much on the opposition. We don't want to put, you know, the best players on on a pedestal. We want to focus on what we're doing. And when we do that, we stick to our process. We we play some really good cricket. You know, we've we've unearthed some. Well, they're going to be rock stars, you know, the way that, you know, Surab netravolk is being treated at the moment. You know, Aaron Jones, now Harm, 18, will probably join that, join that crew as well. You know, Andre Scouse, you know, what a great effort against the team. You know of his, you know of his birth, you know, so it's city. You get emotional because you see what they do and you understand what they've had to put up with. You know, to get here and to put on performances like this is just unbelievably great. And just to continue on, how emotional it must feel for you. I mean, you've played and watched and coached cricket all around the world when here we are in Antigua and, and there were chants of USA in a World Cup match. Like, can you just get your head around? Does it still feel a little surreal? Yeah, probably three years ago when if someone said, you know, you'll, you'll be coaching USA one day or I thought you'd have rocks in your head. But, you know, it's a it's a challenge that I took on and not because of any other reason other than it's a great opportunity to kick start cricket in in the US. And look, I think the the last three months has been a great advert for cricket in the USA with, you know, that's only a third loss in, you know, 13 matches. So it's pretty cool. You know, it's to sit here and to say that it's it's great. I'm I'm very, very proud of the players. They should be proud of their efforts as well. Yeah. So just just like just listening to the the chance of USAUSA, like I said, in Antigua in AT20 World Cup, like Max, like was that even strange? I know you're a coach and you're with the team, but just hearing that like, or did you even get a chance to do that when the game was on? No, mate, we've, we've created a, you know, a support base now and you know, it doesn't matter where they come from, if they're, if they want to see USA win, they'll be cheering for us. And it's, it was great. You know, just the, the USAUSA coming out, you know, it gets you a bit of emotional again, but you know what, great, bring it on. Everyone loves an underdog and USA love winners. So we got to get we got one of those tags, we got to get the other one going first. Stuart, talk about some of the players who've had experience over here. But how much of a challenge was that for the bowlers in particular today, especially finding kind of the right lines lengths when they had left handers, right handers on and that wind blowing across the stadium. Yeah. And, and the, and the pressure of knowing if you miss the South African boys hit it a mile. So that all added up together is, is it's pretty tough. You know, sometimes the, the, the, the moment or the, you know, the situation gets to players who haven't dealt with it enough. But you know, I keep saying, if we, we're not losing, we're learning. So we learn and get better. Saw South Africa, the way they manipulated the ball to be hit to the biggest side into the wind. We just couldn't quite do that enough. After the 10 over mark, we, we started doing it better. But that first six to 10 overs, you know, we weren't as good as what we we could have been. And that's, that's OK. That, that's all right. We'll, we'll learn from it. You know, we'll, we'll point this out to the players before our next match. We take on West Indies in in Barbados and you know, we'll, we'll, we'll stand up again and we'll, we'll give our best effort against the the other host nation. Do you think that that was the the key difference between the two sides in just that use of use of the conditions in the end and how that kind of helped South Africa both with bat and ball? Yeah. And look at nerves play a big part in that, you know, knowing that if you missed the Quinton de Kock, you know, back of a length, he's gonna hit you, you know, 105 metres over mid wicket. And he did it a few times, you know. So it's, it's just part of the learning process we've got to go through. And there's no, you can't. You can sit there and talk about it all you like, but you actually got to go out and live it. So hopefully our boys will take it in, learn from it and get better next game. How's Monarch? Yeah. Look, his shoulders improving out of sight. We, we've got a tight turn around here. We've got a flight booked pretty soon. We were gonna have Nets out the back. But we'll have to see how he goes against bowlers tomorrow. But he's definitely improved out of sight, which is great news for us. But no word on when he might be available. I haven't spoken to the medical team. We haven't seen him face, you know, fast bowlers yet. So once we do that, we'll be able to get a more, you know, clear picture of where he's at. And I did have another one as well. What was it? Do you want to ask you come back to it? Just a word on on Sora. You know, he's been a former captain of the team as well. He's been a player over, you know, the last five or six years who's come up in pretty close situations. What do you think sets him apart, You know, mentally, physically as as a bowler and as yeah, just another sort of head in the in the field that can help out with, with Aaron at the moment taking the captaincy. Yeah. Look, I I think he's, he's very clear, very planned. He's a structured individual and he's very thorough in his preparation. So he, he goes through his bowling net and he'll tell me, right, this is the batter I'm bowling to, this is the field I've got set. I'm going to try and execute this ball. And he, he goes and does it and he'll go away, have a think and then come back and try and do something different, completely different plan. So look, he's very thorough in his preparation. He's a very intelligent, you know, young man, but also he, he, he's got total belief in what he can do and he just shows that under pressure he can he can hold his nerve. And that's, that's the key to being, you know, great international player. You, you've got to come through those, you know, nerve wracking situations out on top. And he's so far this tournament, he he's done it more often than than anyone. I think he's been brilliant. And he's had a little bit more media attention here with the, with the back story and, and all of that. How's he kind of taken all of that in And, and yeah, how's he handled, you know, that front? Yeah, when I say he's intelligent, he he asks a lot of questions and he sort of asked people, how do you deal with it? Because I, I've never had this before in my life. And you know, and that's a, that's a great thing. He, he's had to deal with different, you know, different aspect to, you know, professional cricket. He takes it in his stride. He, he doesn't get overwhelmed by too much. He's very, his thoughts are very clear and he knows what he wants to do and he doesn't take, he doesn't take it lightly. He, he understands that the people out there want to see him play and do well, but he also knows when to switch it off and, you know, get down to business and he's, he's doing it well at the moment. I did remember I, it was actually 2/1 was how impressed have you been by the, the fielding and how much work has gone into what they've been showing out there on the field? Yeah. Look, I, I think today we're the only thing we're not doing well is moving fast between overs. It cost US against India and we're constantly putting ourselves under pressure doing that. But look, the fielding is, is one thing. We haven't done a great deal of fielding. We've played a lot of games and I think that that helps you know, knowing angles, knowing where positions, where fielders are going to be and they worked that out pretty quickly. So that was what we spoke about individually to get in the hot zones, the better fielders in the hot zones, etcetera. And, you know, they, they've done it well, but all I ask is, you know, good energy, good attitude and 100% effort for 20 overs. And the boys go out and do, do what they do. Some do it better than others, but you know, it's it, it as a team we're, we're fielding in in the field, we're pretty good. And, and just a bit sort of on from what Bart was saying. I mean, we've seen clips of Team USA being brought up in national security briefings at the White House. Now come on. That is, is that blowing your mind and blowing the players minds? Oh, look, it's, you know, any, any publicity's great publicity. But when you've got the, the House Speaker talking on the White House lawn, addressing the nation and where the front and centre, it's, it's pretty awesome. So look, I know the USA is very proud of, you know, anything USA and we're not making a massive name for ourselves just yet, but we're on the way, you know, and hopefully in the next, you know, two years, our success can grow. And if it grows, it could get, you know, very, very, you know, very good. Let's say. Yeah, and just finally from me, I mean, you spoke about Harmeet Singh and when those of us who covered Mumbai cricket 17 years ago, he was the 15 year old wonder kid. Like he was supposed to be the next Bishan Singh Beri. And here he is like, you know, it's been a remarkable story his life. And like here he is playing for the US and hitting big sixes like, you know, of, of Shamsi and those like, so just his journey and like, he spoke a lot about Saurabh, like what it's been like to work with him. Harry's great. I, I, I love him. He, he's a fighter, you know, and I know the north of England, you know, the Sikhs particularly, they have that, you know, extra, you know, character about them, their, their heart as nails and they're generally big, big people. So he, he's been brilliant, mate. You know, he's, I thought he'd bowl better than he batted today. You know, even though he batted really well, I thought he'd bowl bowling was outstanding. He's always good in the, in the field. He, he gives, gives his effort, but he's also great in team meetings where he speaks up and he has different plans and tells, encourages the players, right. This is what we need to do for this. And so he, he's, he's one of our key players. He really is. And he, his performance is again under pressure. He, he hasn't done it just today. He's done it a few times already in my short term. And he hits the ball clean when he's going. It's he's very hard to stop. He's one of those players. He hits the ball in funny areas when he bats. So he set a field and he could hit somewhere completely different. Unfortunately, he got out when he did today 'cause I think we might have even got a little closer. But to get to where we was, you know, today, my instructions was, look, if we can't win it, let's get as close as we can. It'll help our net run rate. So if we, you know, pull off two wins in the next two games, we're we're pretty close. Hold on.