Broken lift biggest problem?

Sometimes, JP Duminy's lift does not go to the top floor. At the SA team's Harare hotel this week, it did not even get off the ground. All in a day's work for an international cricketer, Duminy said yesterday.

"Things don't always go your way," he said. "The lifts don't work, as happened yesterday in the hotel. But those are just the challenges you have to face."

And, unusually for people whose default focus is on clearing their path of obstacles, SA are looking to keep uppermost whatever challenges they can find as they prepare for one of the least taxing assignments Test cricket can throw at them: playing Zimbabwe.

The one-off match at Harare Sports Club starts tomorrow, and the portents look good for a crushing SA victory achieved well inside five days.

Of the seven previous Tests the teams have contested, SA have won six, five of them in four or fewer days, and four by an innings.

The exception was the Bulawayo Test of September 2001, when the loss of the second day's play to rain and the cagey cricket SA played forced a stalemate.

What with SA re-installed as the No 1 team, Zimbabwe having won only three of their last 10 Tests, and no rain in Harare since May, another hiding seems probable.

But Duminy was determined to keep pushing the buttons of his broken lift metaphor: "To stay the No 1-ranked team in the world you have to make sure you deal with all situations and respect every team that you play against."

What Duminy did not say, hopefully because this SA team have internalised it so deeply they are no longer conscious of it, is that their respect for themselves trumps everything.

That has surely driven the decision to retain the squad who won in Sri Lanka, even though the game against Zimbabwe is the best chance SA will have to blood new talent. It could also mean minimal tinkering with the XI.

"You want to stay as close as possible to the same team," said Duminy. "You want to build momentum, especially as we aren't playing too many Tests this (World Cup) summer. Once you take your foot off the gas, mother cricket finds you out quite quickly."

That will not sit well with the Zimbabwe team, who have resorted to asking the travelling SA press whether Dale Steyn will play or, they hope like hell, be rested.

Unsurprisingly, no such curiosity about the opposition seems to exist on the SA side of the fence.