Tag SAinENG2012

South Africa, who are in England for quite a few matches including series in all three formats, might not have had enough warm-up games there, but that hasn't brought them down even a little bit, and they look like they are raring to get started with the actual series, which starts at the Oval this Thursday.

Mark Boucher's eye injury, which forced him to retire from international cricket, has hit the team pretty hard, no doubt, but the Proteas have shown great resilience. Their team spirit and composure was tested in the game at Taunton against Kent, and they performed really well.

The three-day match was a quiet one, with half of the second day being washed out. But two full days on the English pitch have definitely helped them. Jacques Rudolph, who scored a half-century in the South African innings, was quoted saying: "I can promise you that all the boys just want that first Test to start now. We're well aware we haven't played a lot of cricket before this series and we've accepted that. England have played a lot of cricket, we haven't but we're not going to be worried about how much cricket we've played."

Hashim Amla and Jacques Kallis also scored half-centuries in the match, while JP Duminy made 53 against somerset.

"From a batting point of view, everybody got starts and got in," Rudolph added. "You've got to have a really good game plan and know the way you want to construct an innings here.

"You've got to play the ball really late because the bowlers are looking to go fuller so driving becomes a little bit more difficult."

The South African bowlers have worked on their technique as well, trying to clear out all the kinks. Their bowling length is one thing that they have been working on hard. Shorter lengths will see the boundary regularly, something that troubled Morne Morkel in the warm-ups. Rudolph said the focus was on finding the right rhythms rather than making big breakthroughs.

"It has been a little bit disappointing for the bowlers because the wicket didn't really give them a lot of assistance, but I know specifically in the first innings they were just trying to bowl into their areas," he said.

"It was pleasing to see Imran Tahir get four wickets in the first innings because he has been working really hard on his game."

It's going to be a tough challenge, considering the roll England are on at the moment, and the Proteas sound ready. If they was live up to their strong words of confidence, it'll be a thing to watch.