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Home > Cricket > South Africa's tour of India 2005 > PTI > Report


Pressure is on India, says Kallis

November 18, 2005 19:24 IST

South Africa [Images] vice-captain Jacques Kallis [Images] says the pressure is on India to win in front of an expectant home crowd in the second one-day international in Bangalore on Saturday after having lost the opening match comprehensively.

With the tourists one-up in the five-match series following their five-wicket win in Hyderabad, the pressure is obviously on India, Kallis said at Friday's pre-match press conference.

The dashing all-rounder had top-scored with an unbeaten 68 to fashion South Africa's victory.

Noting that South Africa haven't won a one-day series in India, he said: "We have to make sure that we are on top of our game and don't fall short. We are pretty confident that we can win the series."

But he said his side expects India to stage a fightback and come out with all guns blazing.

"It's important that we do our best in things we can control."

On South Africa close to equalling Australia's [Images] record 21-match unbeaten streak, Kallis said the team is looking to extend that run as long as they can, but made it clear that they would not do anything differently from what they have been doing in the previous 20 games.

"We are proud of our record and performance (but) we take one game at a time."

Asked to name an individual who could turn things around for India, Kallis said the home team is full of world-class players and "anyone can take the game away from us from both batting and bowling points of view".

He said winning the toss on Saturday would be important given the dew factor in the day-night encounter. But he added South Africa have a game-plan to tackle the Indian spinners.

"We are not worried."

He said there was nothing new in the aggressive tactics used by his team in the first one-dayer. "We try to dominate from the first ball. We want to start off well from ball one, and put India under pressure."

On India captain Rahul Dravid [Images] indicating that the home team is looking to play well in the first 15 overs, following the top order batting collapse in Hyderabad, Kallis said South Africa would not be worried by any strategy that India may adopt.

"We do what we do well... we have never been a team worried too much about our opposition. We are trying to control the things we can control, and let the opposition take t from there."

He said India are a strong side, as demonstrated during their series against Sri Lanka [Images], and South Africa respects the team.

He said it is difficult to compare the captaincy of Rahul Dravid and his predecessor Sourav Ganguly [Images]. He, however, said the results of the last few games (against Sri Lanka) showed that Dravid has done a good job.

To a question, he said, "We have a few niggles in the side," adding Charl Langeveldt had a back injury and would have to undergo a fitness test on Saturday morning.


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