He walked in with South Africa 24 for 3 against a ball doing all sorts on a Perth Stadium pitch that had everyone, apart from probably the batters involved, marvelling at the pace and bounce. There can’t have been many times Miller has shouldered arms to the final ball of the powerplay as he did to Mohammed Shami.
Although he escaped the menace of Bhuvneshwar Kumar and the brilliant Arshdeep Singh, at least until the contest was more in South Africa’s favour, he had to be on his guard against Shami and Hardik Pandya. It was his partner, Aiden Markram, who broke the shackles in the 11th over against Hardik and Miller then took down R Ashwin, not for the first time, to decide the contest having at one point been 16 off 25 balls.
“[There] was extra bounce and it was nipping around,” Miller said. “The guys were bowling extremely well. That’s where we needed to pick up the slack as a middle order. So we managed to get a really good partnership, Aiden and myself, and I suppose just the whole cliché is just one ball at a time and trying to stay in the moment as much as possible. It was difficult, so it was [about] just managing to try and think your way through it.
“I really struggled up front whereas Aiden was playing really well. So there was a lot of dot balls and you can get a bit edgy and try and just counterattack as such. I just try to slow myself down and realise that if I get through this period, the partnership is way more important than me just going out and giving my wicket away.”
“It has been a good ride the last year, year and a half,” Miller said. “For me personally, I just try to draw back on past experiences. I feel like experience is a really valuable thing. For example in the previous game, we were in a little bit of trouble, a lot of pressure to win the game and it’s just about slowing the process down, understanding what is required right now.
“I feel like I’ve been in a lot of different situations in my career and it’s about making sure that you’re really in the moment and what’s required is probably the most important.”
“We are finding lots of ways to win,” Miller said. “We’ve done it over a period of time now. I’d say probably the last year, we’ve found ourselves in tricky situations and managed to get over the line.
“I think the continuity of the squad over time, guys have managed to find their roles and if one guy isn’t doing well, another guy picks up the slack. It’s difficult to be successful in this format, as there’s a lot of different kind of variables, but we’ve managed to do well and play as a team.”
