South Africa will relish Indian conditions: Coach
South Africa cricket coach Corrie van Zyl has said that India will not be favourites going into the next year’s World Cup despite being the hosts of the tournament. He said that given that the players from the other teams are now regulars at playing in India, they have become much more experienced at handling the conditions.
Van Zyl also said that the players can now handle the crowd pressure in a country like India much better than they could earlier because of the Indian Premier League. Players from all over the world play for their respective franchises in the IPL, which is played across more than ten venues in http://www.senore.com/Cricket/India-c750.
Speaking to the media, van Zyl said, "India has traditionally been a difficult place to tour but more recently teams have learnt to win in Indian and sub-continent conditions,”
http://www.senore.com/Cricket/South-Africa-c757 has played a lot of international cricket in India in recent times. In 2008, they were involved in a Test series in India, which was tied 1-1, while in 2010, they played two Tests and three ODIs. While the Test series was again tied at 1-1, the Indian team had won the ODI series 2-1.
The coach also spoke about a change in the way the South African cricketers have begun to approach India. He said that the players have begun to embrace the culture rather than be cautious about the whole thing. He also added, “We are looking forward to playing in these packed stadiums.”
Van Zyl cited the example of http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Dale-c52110 Steyn and Mark Boucher. South Africa play West Indies in their first game of the tournament at the Feroz Shah Kotla.
South Africa has been placed in the Group B along with hosts India, England, West Indies, http://www.senore.com/Cricket/Pakistan-c755 and India.
South Africa have never won the World Cup before, having finished semi-finalists on three of the occasions. The last time the tournament was played in the Indian sub-continent in 1996, they had won all their group matches to advance to the quarter-finals, where they lost to http://www.senore.com/Cricket/West-Indies-c760. In 1992, 1999 and 2007, they lost in the semi-finals, whereas in 2003, they were bundled out in the first round itself.
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