A test series against the Sri Lanka "A" team and the "A" triangular series in Zimbabwe is a part of history at present, but it is certainly mission accomplished.
A very strong SA "A" team was selected over a month ago. The initial camp at the High Performance Centre ( HPC) in Pretoria consisted mainly of the " Test" team, whom played the Sri Lanka A team in 2 "Tests" in a warm and sunny Durban. We won the series 1-0, after playing a nearly faultless first test, which consisted of several individual performances. We did not play great cricket in the second "Test" but this was mainly due to 2 injuries, 2 fast bowlers, which most certainly put us onto the back foot. To add insult to "injury", one of our back up bowlers, injured himself on the third morning whilst warming up.
We had to compete with one front line fast bowler, an injured bowler, working at 60% and a spinner in our second innings. These were definitely long days for myself.
During the second "Test", we were joined by the one day players, whom began preparation for the "A" triangular series in Harare, Zimbabwe. That meant the squad increased significantly and they had to be managed as the coaches needed to get them going with one day skills training. The workload in the physio room also increased a bit as players from both the "Test" and "One day" team needed to be managed.
At the end of the "Test" series, 2 players needed to go back to their respective homes, due to injury and recuperate and get fit again for Ireland selection.
No comments:
Post a Comment