New Delhi [India], February 8 : While many consider Test cricket to be the ultimate challenge for players, South Africa's Ryan Rickelton sees there is something more difficult in the T20 format.
Rickelton became South Africa's first double Test centurion since 2016 with his blistering display against Pakistan in Cape Town. However, the top-order batter has hinted that scoring those runs was quite easier than the 303 he has garnered in seven innings for finalists MI Cape Town in SA20.
"I grew up wanting to be a Test player and thought that in T20, you can just whack a few, but T20 cricket is flipping hard. It's different, but it is harder," Rickelton said as quoted from ESPNcricinfo.
Rickelton outlined the challenge of constantly playing under pressure in the T20s makes it much more challenging than Tests, where one can bid his time and work their way through at low intensity.
"Test cricket is very hard, but with T20s, there's a lot more pressure on every delivery. In Test cricket, you can bide your time and work your way through it at a lower intensity. In T20s, you've got to score [off] every ball," he said.
"There's always pressure on you, internally, externally, there's a more detailed analysis on you as a player, and against your opposition. They're always trying to hit your weaknesses. There's a lot more to it than it seems," he added.
The southpaw has fared well in first-class cricket and consistently maintained his average high. But in T20s, it has been a completely different story. Three years into his T20 career, Rickelton saw a blip in his form and worked hard to make up for it in the past year.
Rickelton's average in the T20s has jumped to 29.84 and boasts a strike rate of 140.77. He topped the run-scoring chart in the previous edition of the SA20, which was during the time he started implementing changes in his batting technique after having a conversation with his batting coach at Lions and MI Cape Town, Hashim Amla.
"I spend a lot of time with Hash. He was a phenomenal player and a calm guy in the way he dealt with his success and his failure, so that's awesome. It's just hard to obviously deal with both sides of the spectrum, but he was an incredible player, and he's a very good coach. Batting is very relationship-based, and having spent three years with him, I can trust his eyes and his perspective as a coach," he said.
"It's also nice to have someone that's around frequently. Even when I move up into the Proteas space, he's still the guy I call back. He'll watch [me play], and I'll toss some thoughts to him. It doesn't mean that I disregard anyone else's [views], but the guys that can see little intricacies coming into your game or what you're thinking behind the scenes are the kind that can relate to you a little bit more," he added.