South Africa and England will get the three-Test series underway tomorrow at the home of cricket, Lord’s.

The Proteas prep for the game wasn’t ideal, however, they have taken the positives from their warm-up game against the English Lions in Canterbury.

Many of the Proteas have never played at Lord’s and the coach, Mark Boucher, said he doesn’t need to motivate his charges and playing at the home of cricket is motivation enough.

“We spoke about coming to Lords and feeling of walking through the gates and the emotion playing at the home of cricket.

“It is a different feeling if you walk through those gates - compared to any other ground in the world.

“That's not to say any other ground is not that special, but there is an extra sense of the specialness when you walk into Lord’s.

“The guys walked through the museum - there are a lot of youngsters here and even some of the older guys who have been here, were still looking at WG Grace’s gloves in the museum and going ‘I don’t know if I could wear those’.

“They put on a nice little South African section as well. We’ve been successful here and maybe we can look at that and hopefully there are memories to be created at this venue and they’d like to be a part of those memories created.

“It’s a nice position for me as coach to be in, because you don’t have to get the boys worked up for this game, I think naturally they are going to be there.”

Day One between England and South Africa will get underway on Wednesday at noon.

Morgan Piek OFM Sport