It will be the Proteas' first cricket since March, while the ODI world champions, England, have played in numerous campaigns during the South African winter.

Proteas batsman, Rassie van der Dussen, says they have to be smart with their aggression.

“The overall message is to be aggressive, but smart. It’s a philosophy that we want to take forward.

“We’ve been descent in Mark Boucher’s term so far.

“As I mentioned in the previous series against England we didn’t really click, but then a few things came together nicely against Australia.

“Still, in the T20 format against Australia we weren’t at our best, losing that series 2-1. We’ve got work to do in the T20 format, but overall we are really about how we want to go about it, what our strengths are and what areas we have to improve on.

 “Mark has been brilliant in terms of clarifying that for us and role definition as players.

“I’m quite excited about where we are as a team.”

The first T20 International at Newlands is set to start at 18:00 on Friday evening.

@MorganPiek OFM Sport