Proteas captain Temba Bavuma’s team face a stern test of their ICC Champions Trophy credentials in Rawalpindi on Tuesday.
Bavuma’s men come up against arch-foes Australia in a Pool B clash that will go a long way in deciding both team’s chances of progressing to the semi-finals.
The Proteas and Australia were both victorious in their opening encounters against Afghanistan and England, respectively. Having dispatched the Afghans by 107 runs last Friday, Bavuma and his team are approaching the Australian contest filled with confidence.
"We're quite bullish about our chances," Bavuma said. "Our confidence is good, so we're quite optimistic about our chances and how far we can go in this competition," he said.
Australia are without their senior trio of fast bowlers Pat Cummins, Josh Hazlewood and Mitchell Starc in Pakistan. They have been replaced by the inexperienced Spencer Johnson, Nathan Ellis and Ben Dwarshuis, who only have 17 caps between them.
While the Proteas will undoubtedly be looking to put this greenhorn attack under pressure from the outset, the Aussies believe the replacements will not take a backward step.
"If we are to bat first throughout the tournament, I'll back our boys to defend, hopefully a good score of 300-plus but if not, Nathan Ellis has got a lot of tricks, he's got a lot of good slower bowls, Spencer Johnson's really damaging up the top, so is Ben Dwarshuis and you've got Sean Abbott ready to go as well," said Australian batter Alex Carey.
"We've come into this tournament really confident that our bowling attack will still do a fantastic job without the big three (Cummins, Starc, Hazlewood), and hopefully as a batting group we can score as many runs and make it easy for our bowlers."
The Proteas have an enviable record against their arch-foes, having not lost a bilateral ODI series to the Aussies since 2014/15.
However, Australia have won the most recent and important clash when they defeated the Proteas by three wickets in a nail-biting ICC World Cup semi-final in Kolkata enroute to claiming their sixth World Cup championship in 2023.
Cape Times