Former Leicestershire and England bowler Jeremy Snape is relishing his role as South Africa performance coach.

Snape, 36, ended his playing career last season and took up his post with the Proteas 12 months ago.

Since then Graeme Smith's side have continued to impress and are regarded by some as the best team in the world.

Snape told BBC East Midlands Today: "I couldn't have dreamt of it. It's been incredible Test-series wise and the one-day internationals have gone well."

He added: "It's a mixture of working on the management team, supporting the coach and captain and offering some sport psychology support to the players and coaches."

South Africa's cricketers have often been criticised for failing to deal with the pressure of major games and big tournaments.

Sometimes passion can get a bit carried away under pressure Jeremy Snape

That came to the fore again on Thursday when they lost their ICC World Twenty20 semi-final by seven runs to Pakistan at Trent Bridge after being labelled favourites for the title following a series of impressive displays.

But Snape has dismissed talk that the team do not have the mental strength to succeed at the highest level, pointing to victories in last summer's Test series in England and the winter's in Australia as proof that South Africa can now cope with the big occasion.

He said: "Whatever tag the nation has in their sport or their cricket does not specifically relate to this group

"This specific group have had an incredible 18 months, beating England at home, Australia, winning Test matches by huge margins, knocking off record run-chases, and getting clean sweeps in one-day internationals.

"This group doesn't have that emotional baggage."

Snape said channelling the pride and passion correctly was the key to finding the winning formula.

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"One of the things I picked up was that there was a huge amount of passion in the team and sometimes passion can get a bit carried away under pressure," he said.

"And we've tried to change that culturally by having more pride in performance and having those drivers.

"We have specific indicators we look for in the team now and we measure ourselves against those rather than the expectation of winning.

"Now we try to focus more on the smaller segments of the game and individuals playing their roles.

"We are much more in control of our destiny and that helps the stress levels as well."

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