Cricket
SA step up preparations ahead of Aus─── 09:05 Tue, 26 Aug 2014
The Proteas began their preparations for their opening match of the triangular series featuring Zimbabwe and Australia at the Harare Country Club on Monday. The squad is fresh from a three-day break following the One-Day International (ODI) series against Zimbabwe, and have prepared for a tough challenge against the No.1 ranked Australians.
“ This is the pinnacle of cricket, you want to play against the best in the world, so we are looking forward to it,” JP Duminy said on Monday ahead of training.
“Its not going to be any easy challenge, they have a lot of match-winners and we will need to find a way to curb them.”
Duminy feels the Proteas could have a slight upper hand over Australia, who are coming in cold following a lengthy winter break.
“ It’s a big triangular for us,” he said. “ For us, coming off quite a good series against Zimbabwe, our tails will be a bit up.
There is a lot of hard work ahead of us don’t get me wrong; Australia are number one in the world and play a good brand of cricket but they also haven’t played much in the last few months. We probably do have the advantage in terms of match practice so hopefully we can make the most of the advantage.”
The late winter conditions at the Harare Sports Club have been slow and spinner friendly, and could open up an attacking tactic for the Proteas with the ball.
“ The wicket in Harare is a lot slower so it might be a strategy that we might try and use,” Duminy said of the spin factor. “ Our strength has always been our pace attack, we are going to rely on that no matter what conditions we are faced with. The great thing about our seam attack is that they can adapt to all conditions so it will be a good challenge for us.”
