We deserve to win, great to make it to the semi-finals: Fleming

Talking to newspersons after his team routed South Africa by five wickets to seal the last four berth, Fleming said, ''Today we did not put a foot wrong. We put behind our last match disappointments and I am happy that the team rose to the occasion.'' He was candid enough to admit that the conditions helped his side. ''The conditions helped us a lot. We learned a lot from the last game. We made a lot of mistakes then but we got everything right today. We got first use of the conditions and Shane (Bond) exploited them.'' Fleming also had a word of praise for swing bowler James Franklin, saying, ''He is a quality bowler and got us early breakthrough. It's valuable to have the left-arm option. We had to use the conditions well and getting those two early wickets was crucial.'' ''We looked at the conditions and decided that we would have a crack with the seam bowlers early and then slow everything off with the spinners after that,'' he said.

But, the Fleming's final accolades were reserved for man-of-the-match Craig McMillan.

''Old golden arm (Craig McMillan) has the ability to grab a wicket out of nowhere and today he did that. It was a great job by him. To get Herschelle's wicket was crucial and to get the other two was a bonus. There are a few subtleties there which did the trick,'' he added.

Fleming was of the view that there was so much on the line today and getting across the line against South Africa has always been tough for them so they wanted to make sure they did it the hard way and grind it out.

He predicted that the match against Australia would be a tough game and his boys would not lower their guards.

''It's nice to know we are through to the semis because Australia are the toughest you can get. We've had some good battles with them of late and they'll be determined to reverse a couple of results that happened in New Zealand and they are playing good cricket at the moment. It should be a great game coming up.'' McMillan said he was feeling on top of the world and ''it is always a thrill to lay a role in your team's win.'' ''I'm grateful to be here and loving it. It was a good day and a good all-round team performance. I suppose after what happened a couple of days ago the guys have bounced back very well today and it's good to be in the semis.

''Taking three wickets was great. I haven't taken that many wickets for a while. Flem (Stephen Fleming) generally gives me the ball with very short notice if we're in a bit of trouble. It's usually to get one wicket, and usually just one or two overs at a time so to pick up a three is unheard of.

''We had the match well under control. Scotty and I talked about getting 40 off the last ten and I think we needed just over that. We had wickets in hand and with guys like McCullum and Vettori to come it was well in control,'' McMillan said.

Wicket-keeper Brendon McCullum also described the win as great.

''It's great. We picked ourselves up after the last game and we've now booked our place in the semi -finals with one game to go in the round robin.

''Obviously, with the overcast conditions and the way the wicket played, the toss was pretty crucial. We knew there was always going to be a window there and the way the guys bowled up front was fantastic. The toss gave us the opportunity to exploit it.'' About the match against Australia, he said, ''We've had a little bit of success over them (Australia) in the last while so we just have to approach it as confidently as we can and see if we put in a good performance on the park.'' UNI HSB PDS PM0436

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