Cricketers probably don't talk about the importance of confidence any more than exponents of any other sport, but it certainly feels that way sometimes. Following a crushing 153-run defeat in the first one-dayer in Bulawayo six days ago, Zimbabwe fared little better in the second match, collapsing to a second successive embarrassment, this time by 148 runs. It's too easy to point toward the timid bowling of the home side, their tentative batting and a tendency to hide in the field and hope the ball goes somewhere else. It's too easy to highlight the slumped shoulders and the lack of verbal encouragement. When a side is so badly beaten – twice – the tendency in cricket is to question the quality of the vanquished.

But if you do that, the sheer, undiluted confidence of this South African side – interpreted in Zimbabwe as arrogance, and often with good and fair reason – might be missed.

Herschelle Gibbs doesn't hit the fifth ball of the match for six just because he can, and because the bowler is poor. He does so because his self-belief is so great that the prospect of an early criticism-laden walk back to the pavilion does not even enter his mind.

Gibbs's partner, Gary Kirsten, has spent all but the last couple of his 170 ODIs conscious that a brilliant but occasionally erratic middle order might need his calming presence through the important mid-innings overs. Now, however, such is the confidence of the middle order that Kirsten feels guilty about using up their time at the crease unless he is flailing boundaries and scoring at a run a ball, at least.

Jonty Rhodes's extraordinary effect on the fielders remains intact, but his decision to specialise in the one-day game has given him time to develop improvisations that leave team-mates, as well as bowlers, open-mouthed. When Rhodes reverse-pulls a delivery for six his team-mates believe anything is possible. In his last 16 one-day internationals, the world's best fielder has scored 640 runs at an average of 71.

Zimbabwe may be fighting a weight division above their worth, but it takes a fighter with confidence to burn to land the knockout blow as early and as hard as South Africa are doing.

Neil Manthorp is a director of the South African sports news agency MWP Media Sport.

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