SA using Kiwis as Champs Trophy fodder

New Zealanders will be miffed by this‚ but South Africa are using their one-day series there as a warm-up for the Champions Trophy in England in June.

“These are very much the conditions we’ll be facing in the Champions Trophy‚” Neil McKenzie‚ South Africa’s batting consultant‚ said on Tuesday in Christchurch - where the second game of the rubber will be played on Wednesday.

“This is a hugely contested series for us. We definitely want to get the results here‚ and if we do it bodes well for us going to England.”

But Kiwis will be glad to hear that the South Africans’ high opinion of their team is another reason why the visitors think the series is excellent preparation for the Champions Trophy.

“They don’t give you much‚” McKenzie said.

• Morkel and Phangiso in the reckoning for Champions TrophyForgotten Proteas fast bowler Morne Morkel and spinner Aaron Phangiso are in the reckoning for places in South Africa’s squad for the ICC Champions Trophy to be hosted by England and Wales in June. 

“All the New Zealand sides seem like a really close-knit bunch of guys‚ and they really fight.

“We’re known for our fighting as well‚ so we can definitely see that quality in the New Zealand side.”

That was borne out in the first match of the series in Hamilton on Sunday‚ when South Africa won a tense tussle by four wickets with a ball to spare.

The victory was South Africa’s 12th on the bounce in ODIs‚ and another win on Wednesday would set a new national record.

“We’ve got a certain blueprint that we want to try and impose on the other side and a certain gameplan we want to achieve‚” McKenzie said.

“The 12 wins show that what we’ve been doing over the last year has really worked.

“You’ve got to try and play that perfect game.

• Despite win in Hamilton SA 'weren't in control'‚ De Villiers says“Not for a second were we in control‚” is not the kind of thing winning captains tend to say‚ but South Africa’s four-wicket victory over New Zealand in the first one-day international in Hamilton on Sunday wasn’t an ordinary kind of game. 

“Hopefully that comes in a semi-final or a final‚ but that blueprint has got to have mattered in every game you play.

“Something we’ve done is working; the gameplan is working.

“Let’s keep going with that - we haven’t played that perfect game yet.”

South Africa’s chances of getting closer to McKenzie’s perfect game were strengthened when David Miller passed a fitness test on the finger injury that has kept him out of South Africa’s last five short-format matches.

But the Kiwis‚ as McKenzie will tell us‚ won’t go quietly: the Hamilton was their first loss in five ODIs.

- TMG Digital