Bafana Bafana head coach Shakes Mashaba has declared himself happy with the team’s preparations for the 30th edition of the African Nations Cup

The hopes of South Africa rest on the men in yellow who will want to match the Proteas’ breath-taking cricket display against the West Indies in Johannesburg yesterday.

After nine years of disappointments, this is probably Bafana’s biggest chance of earning silver wear.

The South African team will take on top-ranked Algeria at 9m tonight  at the Estadio do Mongomo in the first Group C match. Senegal and Ghana are the other teams in the “Group of Death” group.But the national team is boasting a 12-match winning streak, with their latest 3-0 win over Mali on Wednesday a great confidence booster.

They held Cameroon to a 1-1 draw in a warm-up match in Libreville on 10 January.”I think we are [ready] and looking forward to the start of the tournament,” Mashaba told Safa.net. ”

“We are happy with the preparations, especially in matches against Cameroon and Mali. We now know what we are going to face in Equatorial Guinea and, yes, it is going to be tougher than this.”