Tuesday, April 03, 2007

South Africa wary of Irish upset

SouthAfrica wary of Irish upset
World Cup Super 8, Guyana: South Africa v Ireland

Match starts Tuesday 1430 BST

Trent Johnston bowls Herschelle Gibbs in Trinidad
Gibbs was one of four batsmen to fall to Johnston in the warm-up
South Africa hope to avoid an upset on Tuesday against an Ireland side the Proteas admit they would have seen as banker opponents before the World Cup.

After Ireland in Guyana the Proteas play Bangladesh on Saturday and coach Mickey Arthur wants maximum points.

"When you plan for the rest of the Cup these are both 'banker' games but with that comes added pressure," he said.

"If things go well we'd also hope to work a bit on run-rate, but first prize is to leave Guyana with six points."

After being comprehensively beaten by 83 runs against Australia in their final first round match, South Africa then suffered a scare against Sri Lanka.

Wild paceman Lasith Malinga captured a world record four wickets in four balls before the South Africans scraped home by one wicket.

Right now I firmly believe the semi-finalists will be Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and South Africa based on what I have seen but we still have an awful lot of work to do
SA coach Mickey Arthur

"That took quite a few years off my life," Arthur said.

"At five down with four runs needed I started packing away the kit bags but then it suddenly became very hectic.

"It was always going to take something special from there and Malinga certainly nearly delivered it."

The coach admitted he "wouldn't mind staying away from Australia" in the semi-finals but was confident his team could secure a place in the last four.

"Right now I firmly believe the semi-finalists will be Australia, Sri Lanka, New Zealand and South Africa based on what I have seen but we still have an awful lot of work to do."

Ireland almost caused a major upset in a warm-up match against the South Africans shortly before the tournament began.

Their intrepid seam duo Trent Johnston and Dave Langford-Smith helped reduce their illustrious opponents to 91-8 but they were eventually beaten by 35 runs after being bowled out for 157.

If we get a bit of luck along the way we can cause an upset
Ireland's Niall O'Brien

Skipper Johnston insisted his team would not be in awe of any opponents.

"We played well in the warm-up against South Africa and then during our win over Pakistan so if we can repeat those two performances we can achieve the best results."

He admitted, however, that improvements needed to be made on the team's opening Super 8 match against England, which saw them beaten by 48 runs.

"We need to lift our performance by at least 25% in the remaining matches."

Wicket-keeper/batsman Niall O'Brien added: "Teams like South Africa and Australia have got big hitters and they will come hard at us.

"South Africa are a good side - one of the best in the world - but we played well against them in Trinidad so we're confident we can get a good result against them.

"If we get a bit of luck along the way we can cause an upset."


South Africa (from): G Smith (capt), J Kallis, L Bosman, M Boucher, AB de Villiers, H Gibbs, A Hall, J Kemp, C Langeveldt, A Nel, M Ntini, R Peterson, S Pollock, A Prince, R Telemachus.

Ireland (from): T Johnston (capt), A Botha, J Bray, K Carroll, P Gillespie, D Langford-Smith, K McCallan, J Mooney, P Mooney, E Morgan, K O'Brien, N O'Brien, W Porterfield, B Rankin, A White.

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