South Africa’s premier all-rounder, Jacques Kallis, came through a fitness test, and could be included in the team for Friday’s Standard Bank One-Day International at Kingsmead.
Captain Graeme Smith told journalists on Thursday that Kallis had been taking a full part in team practices. ”He’s not feeling any pain, and so he might quite possible play tomorrow or on Sunday.”
Smith said if Kallis did play, his role in the team might change. ”It’s something we will have to discuss with him,” he said.
”Hersch (Herschelle Gibbs) and AB (De Villiers) have injected some real energy playing where they are, and we don’t want to upset that. Jacques would also add another bowling option, as well as his batting.”
He said that André Nel, who was rested for the match in Cape Town last Sunday, was being closely watched. ”His foot flares up from time to time, and with the Test series just around the corner, we don’t want to do anything to make his injury worse.
”His workload will increase in the Tests, so we are watching him carefully. He may be left out of the team for tomorrow’s match.”
Smith dismissed suggestions that the South Africans were chokers when it came to playing big matches against Australia. ”That’s just a whole lot of rubbish,” he said. ”We’re not putting any pressure on ourselves — we have been playing some good cricket, and we want to go on playing good cricket. We started the series very well, with two wins, and even in Cape Town, where we were in trouble, we came quite close to winning.”
He said he believed South Africa’s performance in the one-day series would help the team in the Test series that follows.
”We’ve built up a lot of confidence, and we can take that through to the Test series,” said Smith.
South Africa lead the five-match one-day series two-one, and victory at Kingsmead would clinch the series. — Sapa