We’re well prepared for Malinga and Sandakan – De Villiers

Damith Weerasinghe Reporting From London

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ICC Champions Trophy 2017

The number 1 ranked ODI team, South Africa will be firm favourites to win their first match in the ICC Champions Trophy 2017 when they take on Sri Lanka tomorrow at The Oval Grounds.

Earlier this year, Sri Lanka was whitewashed in a five-match ODI series by South Africa in their backyard but the Lankan outfit has been boosted by the return of Lasith Malinga to spearhead the Lankan attack.

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South Africa skipper AB de Villiers was very confident at the prospect of facing Lasith Malinga who is returning to ODI cricket after 18 months, “Played thousands of games against him. He’s still the same kind of bowler, does the same things. We’re very well prepared against him and we’ve had some good success against him in the past. We have lots of respect for him as a cricket player. But we’ll follow our game plans against him tomorrow. It’s all in place.” De Villiers said.

South Africa has a reputation for under-performing in ICC tournaments with the only exception been the inaugural Champions Trophy (ICC Knockout Trophy) in 1998. South Africa also boasts the world’s number one-ranked ODI batsman and bowler in AB de Villiers and Kagiso Rabada respectively.

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Sri Lanka has always been a tough team to beat at major tournaments in the past but they have been at the receiving end recently, especially when South Africa knocked them out of the ICC World Cup in 2015. AB De Villiers stressed heavily that the islanders can be a very dangerous outfit and will be hoping for revenge tomorrow, “They always play well in these tournaments. We’re well aware of that and they are a very well-respected team within our group, and they deserve that respect. Even though they haven’t been in the greatest form in the last season, you come to tournaments like this and anything can happen. It’s all about what happens out there on the day. They have a lot of match winners on their team. So, it’s so much more important for us to make sure that we don’t think about what happened in the last series and we focus on tomorrow’s game.” De Villiers said.

Read More : ThePapare.com picks Sri Lanka’s XI

South Africa team is packed with many bowling all-rounders in Chris Morris, Wayne Parnell Dwaine Pretorius and Andile Phehlukwayo but most likely it will be only Morris and Parnell who will make the cut in tomorrow’s game.

Sri Lanka skipper Angelo Mathews noted prior to the tournament that chinaman spinner, Lakshan Sandakan will be the key for the 2002 joint-champions of the ICC Champions Trophy as most team have not seen him in action but the Proteas skipper had other thoughts at the pre-match press conference: ”He’s a good bowler. We played him very well in South Africa, and it was great for us to have a look at him because he’s got a bit of an odd action. He’s got some mystery balls, well, not mystery balls, but he turns it both ways. So it was really good preparation for us to look at him. I think it would have been interesting to come here not having seen much of him and having to play him in the game first up. So we definitely have a bit of an advantage with that but still, he’s a really good bowler and he’s capable of taking wickets, and we’re well aware of that. Like I said, we have plans for every player on the team, including Sandakan.”

South Africa has beaten Sri Lanka in all their last 7 ODIs while bowling out them in 6 instances. With Sri Lanka Captain Angelo Mathews highly unlikely to feature in tomorrow’s game due to a calf injury, skipper De Villiers whose team was beaten by the hosts, England 2-1 in a three-match ODI series preceding the Champions Trophy will be looking to start the tournament in a winning approach, ”If Angelo plays, obviously he’s a big figure in their side, and he’s a match winner for them. So it will be a big loss for them to lose him. But if he does play, same thing applies for us, to make sure that we focus on what’s happening out there tomorrow and used plans that we’ve been working towards.” De Villiers said.