South Africa captain Graeme Smith said on Thursday his team would put video analysis to good use when they try to level the series against Australia in the second Test starting at Kingsmead on Friday.
Smith said the South Africans had spent ”more time than usual” studying footage of the first Test in Johannesburg, which Australia won by 162 runs.
Australian newcomers Marcus North and Phillip Hughes both made big contributions to their team’s win, North with a first-innings century and opener Hughes with 75 in the second innings.
”We’ve got a good view of them now and we’ve got some plans,” said Smith.
”It’s a matter of putting them into practice and applying them to the conditions here.”
Australia captain Ricky Ponting acknowledged that he expected the South Africans to have done their homework and said it would be a challenge for his young players.
”I spoke to our young guys yesterday [Wednesday] just so they can start getting their heads around the challenges they will be facing,” he said.
”We know the South Africans will be ready for us. It’s about those guys taking the next step as well and lifting their own games and making sure last week wasn’t a one-off performance for them.”
Ponting said he had emphasised that ”one Test match doesn’t make a series or a career”.
He added: ”It’s about being good enough to do it time after time and working out for yourself how you’re going to combat the better players in the opposition sides.”
While Smith and his technical team have been studying video footage, Ponting has been studying the scorecards of matches at Kingsmead to get an idea of which individuals had done well at the ground. One card he didn’t need to look at too closely was that of the last time Australia played a Test in Durban three seasons ago — Ponting himself scored centuries in both innings and Australia won by 112 runs.
Ponting said the record clearly favoured fast bowlers but he wasn’t going to make an early judgement. Although the pitch had a lot of grass he expected it to be cut before the game and he said he was surprised that it was quite dry with some cracks.
Fast bowlers Peter Siddle and Ben Hilfenhaus, who both had minor injuries, trained with the team on Thursday and Ponting said a final decision on their fitness would be made on Friday morning.
South Africa, who won the first two Tests in Australia earlier in the season to clinch the series, have lost their last two matches against the world champions, with the Johannesburg defeat following Australia’s consolation win in Sydney in January.
But Smith said he didn’t believe the two defeats amounted to a momentum swing.
”Not at all,” he said. ”We just want to play to our potential. We didn’t reach that in Johannesburg and Sydney was a very separate situation. It feels a long time ago. We want to focus on playing better cricket.”
Smith said South Africa would almost certainly field the same team for the fifth successive Test. — AFP
