Advantage Proteas on pacy WACA wicket

“I think Shaun’s bowling particularly well — his record’s just magnificent (377 wickets at 22.09),” Hayden said. “It’s comparable to that of Glenn (McGrath) really in a lot of ways and does a similar sort of job as well.”

Hayden said England all-rounder Andrew Flintoff was the only other bowler apart from Nel who could go around the wicket and still swing the ball away to left-handed batsmen.

“Big Andre Nel can do that and do a very good job at that,’’ Hayden said. “So they’ve got their challenges for us and I really rate them highly.

“The side that we struck — Fanie de Villiers, Allan Donald, Brian McMillan and (Craig) Matthews — through the early 90s was a very, very good attack. But I rate this one just as highly as that. We are going to have our work cut out for us,” he said.