Australia vice-captain Adam Gilchrist said on Tuesday that Australia had much to take out of Sunday’s defeat by South Africa in the final Standard Bank one-day international at the Wanderers.
”We have a lot that we can be proud of,” he said. ”We all know that we took part in something unique, and we certainly weren’t embarrassed in any way.
”We’ve put it behind us now, and will be concentrating on winning the Test series. We have five or six players who have joined the squad — some of them, like Shane Warne, Justin Langer and Matthew Hayden — are players of great experience.
”They know how to come in and adjust to new conditions. We can focus now on getting back to the game in white, and getting used to the red ball again.”
Gilchrist said spin bowler Warne would do much for the Australian team.
”Watching the promotions for the series, a lot of them centre around Shane, so that shows how important he will be.
”We will miss Glenn McGrath, but we’ve played without him before, just as we’ve played without Shane. Brett Lee is a very experienced cricketer now, and he’s been doing a very good job. We all understand why Glenn isn’t here, and we know that he’s doing the right thing.”
He said it was not clear whether Australia would play two spin bowlers in the first Test, which begins at Newlands on Sunday.
”We’ll take a look at the wicket and see, but I think I missed school the day they taught us how to read a wicket, so I can’t really tell you. The spinners did well against South Africa in Australia, but we haven’t identified that as a major weakness in their batting,” he said. — Sapa