The Proteas are ranked number one in the 50-over format at the moment and are confident of winning the 2nd biggest ICC event for just the second time.

The captain AB de Villiers’ form in the Indian Premier League has been a hot topic of late, and questions were raised ahead of the departure.

Short before boarding the plane to the UK, De Villiers said that he is not worried about his form.

“I'm not worried, I hope you’re not worried.

“I’ve had a few decent knocks which were spilt across the tournament quite well. I started off with quite a good knock.

“Then four or five games, I had a decent one again. I never scored a hundred or anything like that, but I always felt like I’m in good form.

“I’m not worried, I’m really excited to move forward. I’m hitting the ball as well so I think there are some good scores to come”.

De Villiers added that the team’s failure in numerous events isn’t something that they would consider a monkey on the back.

“I won’t say that we constantly talk about it, it’s definitely something that we haven’t done for a while.

“We’ve won the ICC Champions Trophy before once, but it happened a long time ago.

“We’ve been playing some good cricket over the last few months, in fact, the last few years.

“Since the big disappointment at the 2015 World Cup, I think that we have raised the bar.

“We’ve picked ourselves up and it has shown some really good results.

“We go there with confidence and we would like to win the Champions Trophy.”

The Proteas face England on 24 May at Headingly in the first of three ODI’s.

Morgan Piek/OFM Sport