Birmingham: South Africa are prepared to take on Pakistan at the Edgbaston on Monday, fully aware that they are a totally different team from India whom they met in their last match at Cardiff in the opening match of Champions Trophy.
Answering to a query from Gulf News on how different will Pakistan be as opponents from India, South African skipper AB De Villiers said: “They are totally different teams. Pakistan has got a world-class spinner in [Saeed] Ajmal and they’re a very good team as well, just very different to India. India has a very strong batting line-up right throughout the order. If Indians are strong with the batting, Pakistan has probably got a stronger bowling attack. We played them in the recent past in South Africa and in the warm-up game here in England. We know them very well, and we’re looking forward to the challenge tomorrow.”
South Africa, however, is not yet sure if they will be able to play their strike bowler Dale Steyn who is recovering from an injury. “The final decision hasn’t been made yet, but it’s not looking good; chances are that he’ll only be ready for the last one. We’re still hanging on to that last little bit of hope that he could wake up tomorrow morning and do a bit of a fitness test and look good for the game, but it’s not looking good at all,” said De Villiers, for whose team it’s a do-or-die battle.
However, De Villiers is not going to follow an aggressive approach to pull off a victory. “We are not going to change too much. We’ve tried the aggressive approach before and I very well remember the ICC Cricket World Cup 2007 where we’ve had Australia in the semi-final and we tried to change our strategy and the next minute we were 20 for 5. We’re going to stick to what we do best. We know our strengths really well. We also know we’re lacking a bit and we’ll try to minimize that. We’re going to stick to our gameplan. We believe if we played to our full potential, which we didn’t in the previous game, we can beat any team.
When asked whether he watched the Pakistan-West Indies match and has worked out a strategy, De Villiers said: “The Pakistan game against the West Indies was a low-scoring one, so we couldn’t take much out of it except for two good bowling attacks operating and looking in good form. We are well aware of the Pakistan’s bowling attack. We would obviously like to have wickets in hand towards the last 15 overs. If it’s a flat wicket and it’s really good, there’s no need to try and think of the last 10-15 overs, then you have to accelerate right throughout the innings. So we will assess conditions tomorrow. We are up against a very good team that can beat any team in this tournament. We’re playing some good cricket and we’re confident we can beat Pakistan tomorrow.”
