Cupcakes can't capsize calm South Africans

Watch television in India for not much more than a few seconds and you are more likely than not to see Rohit Sharma advertising one of a seemingly endless range of goods and services that have nothing to do with cricket. On Sunday, the Narendra Modi Stadium is sure to heave with more than 100,000 spectators, almost all of them in India blue. Then there's those damned cupcakes.

How is Shukri Conrad keeping his players' eyes on the ball going into their biggest match of the T20 World Cup so far - a Super Eights clash against the home side in the world's largest cricket stadium in the country where the game matters more than it does anywhere else on the planet?

"It's been the easiest job thus far," Conrad said on Friday. "The guys have experience in World Cups and they've got experience in IPLs. They know what playing in India is about.

"They have been brilliant in that respect. They get out, they play their golf, they play their padel. And when the time comes to do some graft, they do that. They're managing to balance everything well.

"So that's been the easy bit. We know everything's going to get ramped up now with the Super Eights, but I'm pretty confident we'll keep doing that and do it our kind of way."

So much for the players. How about the coaching staff?

"We try and be as calm as we possibly can because the players feed off that energy as well," Conrad said. "The group stage was the anxious bit for me, because tournament cricket almost has three parts to it.

"You've got to find a way to get out of the group stage, and we've done that. Now we've got India first up and then West Indies [in Ahmedabad on Thursday]; some of the most entertaining players in the world. That excites me."

But not in a way that might upset the South Africans' state of harmony: "The guys have been so calm in the way they've gone about things. We certainly haven't had the need to either hype things up or tone things down.

"The guys are clear in their plans. The practices have been structured. The guys know exactly what it is they want and how they want to prepare. We try and keep [the mood] light, but a false, artificial lightness doesn't count for much. So we keep it real more than anything else."

Asked if he had had any cupcakes lately, Conrad said: "I need to get off the cupcakes." That was a reference to the host broadcaster's much derided ad that depicts a South Africa supporter choking on a cupcake he has snatched from an India fan. The ad was met with a significant backlash from the Indian public, and has since disappeared from the broadcaster's social media accounts.

Conrad, who said he had seen the ad, described it as "quite hilarious" and said it would "add to what's going to be a special occasion on Sunday". But he stopped short of saying the clumsily considered scene - the South Africa fan speaks in the wrong accent and the Indian addresses him largely in Hindi, which he is unlikely to understand - would spur his players on.

"We don't take it too seriously. If we're looking for motivation from the outside then we're not in the right frame of mind and not in the right place. We definitely don't need motivation from the news articles or advertisements in India or anywhere else in the world. We know what we have to do and how we're going to do it. We're experienced enough to turn off all the noise and get on with business as usual."

The mute button can be a beautiful thing. And the best way to hit it on Sunday would be to strike hard and early, with bat or ball, and keep doing so. The cupcakes - so far among the few things not advertised by Rohit Sharma - would taste so much sweeter if that happens.