Tags:
Journalism of Courage
FEBRUARY 17: A confident-sounding South African captain Hansie Cronje claimed the current tourists, who arrived here late last night, were much stronger and more confident than the squad, which lost to India 1-2 in 1996, and expressed confidence that they would do well this time.
TOUGH CHALLENGE: I think playing India in India is a very tough challenge. It is one of the toughest tours these days. India was obviously very disappointing in Australia. I think they missed players like Ajay Jadeja, Mohammed Azharuddin and Nayan Mongia. Obviously they are back in contention against us. Saying this, I feel South Africa is very strong at the moment, stronger than the side which toured India in 1996. Every single player will like to have under his belt a series victory in India. It will depend upon how well India come back after the series defeat against Australia
ABSENCE OF JONTY: Jonty is not only a good player of spin bowling but is also a good fielder. We have some very good substitutes like Strydom and Dippenaar for whom this is a good opportunity.
WICKET WAYS: It is a difficult task to think of preparing fast pitches for the series. Obviously one would want to use the home advantage and India have played very well on these wickets before. Stroke-makers like Saurav Ganguly, Rahul Dravid, Sachin Tendulkar and Azhar will like to play well on any wicket, so I am not 100 per cent sure on what sort of wickets we can expect.
GOOD CHANCE FOR ESKSTEEN, BOJE: Paul Adams8217; absence has given a good chance for Esksteen and Boje to make an impression. Eksteen aged 33 has been out of the team for 4-5 years. He is very experienced and has matured as a cricketer. He is a good captain and thinks a lot about the game. Boje is a young bowler who did not get a chance to play Tests in 1996, but he has experience of playing in one-day internationals here having done so in the Titan Cup.
THREE OR FIVE TESTS SERIES BETTER: Modern tours and itineraries are very tight and very tough job for the game8217;s administrators to find a correct solution. Obviously it would have been nice to play a three or five Test series. But no complaints, we are happy to go into the series with one warm-up game in which the players have to get adjusted to the conditions.
