Proteas ‘comfortable’ with preparations despite rain disrupting warm-cup clash

South Africa have had a good start to their final preparations for the World Test Championship final, according to head coach Shukri Conrad, despite the opening day of their only warm-up match being called off.

Having last played a Test in January, the majority of the SA team had focused on limited overs cricket this year, giving them only a single four-day game against Zimbabwe in Arundel to fine-tune ahead of the clash against Australia in the global final.

And while the first day of the match was abandoned on Tuesday due to rain, Conrad was pleased the Proteas had already spent quality time together as a group after arriving in the UK at the weekend.

“We’ve had two really good days where batters have spent extensive time in the nets, and I’m not too worried about coming from different formats – guys adapt very quickly – so I’m comfortable with where we’re at,” Conrad said.

“It’s not ideal (the weather disruption) but you come to expect this, and this is part of what could potentially be thrown up, so if we have another day of rain tomorrow we’ve just got to make it work as best we can.”

Looking ahead

Conrad did hope, however, that the weather would clear up over the next few days in order to give the Proteas players some time in the middle ahead of the Test final against Australia starting in London on 11 June.

“Hopefully we get something tomorrow and we can go a little bit later, so the batters can spend some time at the wicket and the bowlers can get some more miles in the legs,” he said.

“That’s pretty much what this four-day game was going to be about anyway.”