No such thing as home advantage in Champions Trophy: Rhodes
Last Updated on
Sunday, August 16, 2009, 13:34
IST
Cape Town: Former South African player Jonty Rhodes said that being the home side, will not be much advantageous for his team for next month`s Champions Trophy as the teams travel a lot these days, and hence, are used to different conditions.
“The support of the crowd does make a difference if things go a bit flat and they can lift you, but South Africa won’t be relying on that,” Rhodes said.
“They’ll be relying on planning and getting in place all the processes involved in winning.”
Rhodes added that South Africa, along with Australia and India will start as favourites for the Trophy.
“They [South Africa] are a really well-balanced unit and they are setting standards for the other teams to chase. But Australia are written off far too easily, they will obviously be strong contenders, they have a good record in the competition and they know how to win. India are also very good, they’ve learnt how to travel and win and they have destructive bowlers and hitters in their line-up,” said Rhodes, a fielding coach for IPL team Mumbai Indians.
Rhodes claimed that his team’s strength is consistency, which is of utmost importance in an ODI encounter.
“They’ve been playing great cricket, the team is settled and everyone knows their roles, they’ve got special players in batting, bowling and fielding. Their preparation and organisation will be excellent and they’ve learnt how to hit the ground running. They’ve learnt how to switch on very quickly and the management team of Graeme Smith and Mickey Arthur have been very good at that.”
“But you can’t afford to have a bad day. We saw that in the Twenty20 World Cup, where we played great cricket but, to take nothing away from the opposition, someone like Shahid Afridi produced something special.”