With eyes on World Cup, Australia conflict with South Africa

With eyes on World Cup, Australia conflict with South Africa

BLOEMFONTEIN: Australia have set winning the five-match One-day International series in South Africa as their primary task as they utilize the games to hone their preparations for next month’s World Cup in India, said captain Mitchell Bog on Wednesday.

Australia take on their hosts in the first ODI in Bloemfontein on Thursday where the wicket is expected to be flat like those in India but with the players having to manage cold temperatures.

Australia have proactively selected their side for the opening game of the series with Bog dropping down the top request to No. 3, behind Travis Head and David Warner, having opened with Head in Australia’s last ODI which was a 21-run win over India in Chennai in Spring.

“There’ll be potentially a couple of moving parts with our crew throughout these five games, I’m guessing it’s the same with South Africa with a weighty timetable, building to the World Cup. We’ll have certain folks in different regions, but I’ll start at No. 3 tomorrow,” he told a public interview.

Bog captained Australia to a convincing 3-0 whitewash of their hosts in last week’s T20 series but is expecting a lot tougher challenge in the 50-over version.

“It was obviously a really pleasing win for us collectively, even as a pretty youthful team to play the manner in which we did. South Africa welcome back a lot of experienced players presently, so it’ll be a different challenge for ourselves and they play very well at home,” Swamp said.

Australia’s preparations for the World Cup have been hit by injuries to Test captain Pat Cummins and Steve Smith, who both picked up wrist injuries during the Cinders series, ruling them out of the ODI series in South Africa. Mitchell Starc has likewise been sidelined by a groin issue.

Then again, South Africa are looking to adjust giving returning players an opportunity to find their structure with trying to gain some team momentum as they begin the series against Australia.

South African captain Temba Bavuma is seeking to utilize the series to wipe out a couple of spider webs as well as building the teams confidence for the Oct 5-Nov 19 World Cup.

“It’s a bit of an equilibrium since there are folks who haven’t been playing for some time and opportunity will be given to them, something else for batters to get them into the right mental and physical space,” Bavuma said.

“And for the bowlers it will be about getting time in their legs out there in the middle. I think what is more important is the collaboration and the relationship between the bowlers out in the field, to get that going again.”

South Africa have included spinner Keshav Maharaj and seamer Sisanda Magala in their World Cup crew, which was reported on Tuesday, after the pair overcame fitness concerns.

“Our World Cup preparations started from the very outset of this year, where we saw several new faces coming into the team, folks who we envisaged playing certain jobs within the team. Some folks have stayed, some folks, unfortunately, haven’t arrived,” added Bavuma.

“It [Australia] is our last series before the World Cup. So I suppose there’s a lot all the more a significance behind it but I think in terms of everything that we’ve done our prep started quite a while in the past and for us it’s just a matter of continuing and challenging ourselves.”