{"id":14528,"date":"2018-02-28T17:42:14","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T17:42:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/?p=14528"},"modified":"2018-02-28T17:42:14","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T17:42:14","slug":"unchanged-australia-seek-south-african-glory","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/2018\/02\/28\/unchanged-australia-seek-south-african-glory\/","title":{"rendered":"Unchanged Australia seek South African glory"},"content":{"rendered":"

Australia will take the same team that lifted the Ashes urn in Sydney seven weeks ago into the first Test against South Africa, for a series the captain Steven Smith believes can be the making of numerous younger members of his side.<\/span><\/p>\n

It was in the corresponding Test four years ago in Centurion that Smith and Shaun Marsh sculpted centuries that set an ultimately victorious tone for the team then led by Michael Clarke \u2013 both still regard those innings as the finest of their careers. Similarly, a host of Australian pace bowlers have saved their very best for South Africa, with Mitchell Starc, Josh Hazlewood and Pat Cummins eager to add to a tradition of success: Australia have not lost a series in this part of the world since the end of apartheid.<\/p>\n

While Smith admitted the prospect of a four-Test series, elongated from three at the behest of the former Cricket Australia chairman Wally Edwards after a thrilling Cape Town denouement in 2014, would be especially taxing at the end of a long summer, he was adamant that his team had refreshed sufficiently to take on Faf du Plessis\u2019 side. At the same time he looked for breakout overseas performances from the likes of Cameron Bancroft, Usman Khawaja and Mitchell Marsh alongside the senior men.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no doubt it\u2019s a tough tour. Conditions wise it\u2019s as similar as you get to back home but you\u2019re still away from home and they\u2019re a good team,\u201d Smith said in Durban. \u201cSo it\u2019s a chance where guys can find some confidence that they can play well away from home and hopefully some guys have innings like Shaun at Centurion and make a name for themselves and give them that confidence they can do it against quality attacks like South Africa.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo doubt throughout the series guys are going to have some sort of fatigue set in. It has been a long summer and every Test back home went five days and things like that, but in the end you\u2019re playing for your country and you find ways to get yourself up. You don\u2019t need too much motivation when you\u2019re playing for your country.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s just going to be about helping each other out and making sure that if guys are feeling fatigued someone else will take the load for a bit and just trying to share that as much as possible and make sure we can keep each other as fresh as we can be and just in the challenge really.\u201d<\/p>\n

Most critical for Australia\u2019s chances in the looming bout will be the physical and mental readiness of the \u201cbig three\u201d fast bowlers, who alongside Smith and Nathan Lyon were the difference for Australia in the Ashes. Smith, who himself needed time away from the game after showing signs of fatigue in the ODI series defeat to England that preceded the trip to South Africa, said he had sensed a greatly refreshed mood amongst his spearheads.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey all had a little bit of time off at the end of the one-dayers, which I don\u2019t think you actually need that long,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI think a week or two actually just does a world of good to anyone and I know that when we landed here, Starcy for instance was so happy the way the ball was coming out, he was swinging it and you could just see on their faces that they were a bit more refreshed and just ready to go. Everyone is excited about this series, it\u2019s going to be a cracker.\u201d<\/p>\n

Smith, of course, is as pivotal to his team\u2019s chances as anyone, and as the world\u2019s leading Test batsman by a distance, he has a record and reputation to maintain against Vernon Philander, Kagiso Rabada and the soon-to-retire Morne Morkel. Having effectively steeled himself to put together outstanding series against India and England over the past 12 months, Smith was hopeful of having everything \u201cjust click\u201d for him at the batting crease this time around.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too early to tell yet. I don\u2019t know. It sort of just happens out in the middle sometimes,\u201d he said. \u201cI really enjoyed the couple of weeks I had off after the one-day series. I needed that, I was very drained. It got to the point where I actually didn\u2019t want to pick my cricket bat up for a bit which is very rare for me. I just love batting.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt got to a point where I wanted to do it again, so I think that was the moment where I was sort of refreshed and ready to go. I feel like I\u2019ve been batting well since we\u2019ve been here. Hopefully, I can stand up again and lead the boys and get myself in that zone again to have the success against a good bowling attack.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Kingsmead pitch looks to have even grass coverage but Smith expected it to be on the slower side, in keeping with South Africa\u2019s stated intentions to deny the Australian pacemen the sort of spicy surfaces served up for the recent India series. To that end, Smith said patience and the ability to grind out difficult periods of play with bat and ball would be vital.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thought that they\u2019d go with quite slow wickets or maybe green wickets,\u201d Smith said. \u201cOne of the two. I didn\u2019t think they\u2019d have a great deal of pace. But looking at the wicket now a couple of days out, it looks like it could be quite slow, maybe not a great deal of carry. But I\u2019m terrible at judging wickets, so it\u2019s just about summing it up when we\u2019re out there and adapting to whatever we\u2019re dealt and identifying it quickly and making sure we\u2019re doing everything we need to do on our feet quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cFirst Test match is so important so you don\u2019t want to be behind the eight ball early in this series. I think the average first innings score\u2019s around 270-280, so it could be quite a hard grind and playing the long game as much as you can and toughing out difficult periods and just being on top of every run, every run could be crucial. Just being all over that and making sure we start well with the first Test.\u201d<\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s enviable record in South Africa has gone some way to erasing memories of the previous encounter between the sides in late 2016, when Rabada, Philander and company skated to a victory that caused great turmoil in Australian cricket but has since been cited by many as the making of Smith\u2019s captaincy. Certainly the unchanged XI, in contrast to the five changes made between Hobart and Adelaide 18 months ago, is a marker of stability and improvement.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat wasn\u2019t a great time, it was a bit of a low point for Australian cricket, but I think since then we\u2019ve made some really good strides and the cricket we\u2019ve been playing, particularly back home in the Ashes was magnificent,\u201d Smith said. \u201cNow it\u2019s about doing all those things we did well, the basic things, but doing them at another level. If we do that then I\u2019m confident we can have a lot of success.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think our squad together now is a really good squad. Even the guys that aren\u2019t playing have been training exceptionally well. Petey [Handscomb] got a hundred before we came away in Shield cricket and averages 47 in Test cricket so I think it is showing us that we\u2019ve got a good side. Having said that, we\u2019re going to have to be up for the challenge here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Du Plessis finger could help not hinder<\/strong><\/p>\n

Australia\u2019s captain Steven Smith reckons his opposite number Faf du Plessis\u2019 damaged right index finger may not be as much of a hindrance as many think. South Africa\u2019s captain injured his finger during the ODI series against India, and will enter the Tests without anything in the way of match practice.<\/p>\n

Noting that both he and du Plessis tended to play with a strong bottom-hand grip, Smith observed that anything that served to lighten the batting grip and place more onus on the top left hand could actually aid a batsman to play more correctly. \u201cHe holds the bat pretty heavily with his bottom hand, probably much like I do \u2026 sometimes it\u2019s actually a good thing if this hand is injured you start using this one a bit more and you keep your shape a bit better,\u201d Smith said. \u201cI actually don\u2019t mind if something is injured in my right hand, if that makes sense.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf he hasn\u2019t picked the bat up and had that much time in the middle or in the nets, he might be a little bit underdone, but he\u2019s obviously a class player, he\u2019s played a lot of cricket and it usually doesn\u2019t take too long to get things back in the groove for that sort of player. He\u2019s a good player, there\u2019s no doubt about that. He\u2019s scored runs, some really good runs in Australia. Got hundred in the pink ball game [in Adelaide in 2016], so there\u2019s no doubt he\u2019s a really good player and hopefully we can keep him quiet throughout this series.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Australia will take the same team that lifted the Ashes urn in Sydney seven weeks ago into the first Test against South Africa, for a series the captain Steven Smith believes can be the making of numerous younger members of his side. It was in the corresponding Test four years ago in Centurion that Smith and Shaun Marsh sculpted centuries that set an ultimately victorious tone for the team then led by Michael Clarke – both still regard those innings as the finest of their careers. Similarly, a host of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":14529,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[30,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14528"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14528"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14528\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14530,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14528\/revisions\/14530"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14529"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}