Kingmead, January 12: SOUTH African captain Graeme Smith on Tuesday said since a few World Cup berths are still on offer, the players would be under pressure to perform in the oneday series against India.
Smith said the five- match series, beginning on Wednesday, will be a tough but exciting assignment for both the sides.
“ It think it is going to be another exciting series, as the Test series was. Both teams have some quality players. A number of players are still playing for spots in the World Cup squad, so it adds an extra incentive to the series.
“ Any player would love to go to the World Cup and have the opportunity to perform well. I guess there’s always that added pressure on the players to perform,” Smith said on the eve of the opening match at Kingsmead.
Smith said the series is being played in different conditions from that of the sub- continent but they want to go into the World Cup on a winning note.
“ We have to realise that the World Cup will be played in totally different conditions to what we are going to be playing here. We would love to have the confidence of performing well here and being successful, it’s not necessarily going to define how well we are going to be in the World Cup.
“ Our mindset is very crucial here in terms of playing really good cricket and getting the confidence up and players getting good performances under their belt. It’s a very different style of playing in the sub- continent,” he said.
Smith said they will definitely miss the all- round abilities of Jacques Kallis due to an injury and they are trying to develop more all- rounders in the team.
“ Obviously, Jacques’s injury does hamper how we control things. He is the main front line allrounder for us. We are really working hard on developing someone like Wayne Parnell into that sort of all- rounder mould.
“ We’ve got Robin Peterson and Johan Botha in that all- rounders’ mode also and someone like Faf de Plessis, who is a very good all- round cricketer.” Smith predicted that a score of more than 220 would be competitive on the Kingsmead track. “ There are a lot of stories around Kingsmead going around at night. It depends on the surface. Lately, there has not been a lot of grass on the surface. It can swing a little bit at night,” he said.
–PTI