Andrew Symonds looks set to be passed fit for Australia’s crucial Group A encounter against South Africa

Andrew Miller in St Kitts21-Mar-2007

Good news for the Australia: “He’s coming along pretty well. We’re just building up his throwing” © Getty Images
Andrew Symonds, Australia’s pivotal allrounder, looks set to be passedfit for Australia’s crucial Group A encounter against South Africa,although a final decision will be delayed until the eve of Saturday’s match.”He’s pretty much trained unrestricted, or with limited restriction,so they [the selectors] have had a good chance to look at himthemselves,” Alex Kountouris, the team physiotherapist, said. “He’sgoing alright. His batting is unrestricted, his bowling isunrestricted. Most parts of his fielding are unrestricted. He’s comingalong pretty well. We’re just building up his throwing.”The throwing aspect would appear to be the biggest barrier toSymonds’ early recall. Though his recovery from a torn right biceps isahead of schedule, he has been attempting returns of no morethan 25-30 metres which, even on a ground as notoriously small asWarner Park, is short of a full boundary’s length.”From my point of view, I just want to get him right and obviously Iwant it to be 100% but I’m realistic, ” said Kountouris. “He’s hadsurgery not that long ago, so I’m just trying to get him to thehighest possible level that I can, and let the others make thedecision on what he can and can’t do, and whether they want to playhim or not.”We haven’t actually cleared him to play, there’s still a couple morethings that we want him to do until we reach that point and we’vestill got a couple more days to do it. But he’s got a very positiveattitude. He’s not demanding [selection], but he’s confident with whathe can do, which is what you want. You want someone to be positiveafter coming back from a long-term injury.”Symonds is not the only member of the Australian squad who is itchingto get stuck into their first big contest of this World Cup. “The boysare so pumped up for this game, they can’t wait,” Michael Hussey,whose contributions have been limited by the successes of hiscolleagues higher up the order, said. “It’s a huge game and we want to betested. We want a real serious contest and see how it pans out.”Recent Australia-South Africa encounters have been marked by a glut ofcomments flying back and forth between the two camps, but forthis match, the hype has been more measured. “The teams have a healthyrespect for each other,” Hussey said, “but I think they’ve realisedthat that sort of banter doesn’t really work.”You can have all the mind games you want and all the slanging matchesgoing back and forth. But at the end of the day I don’t think itreally works at all. What matters is out on the field. It’s how wellyou play the game. These are two proud countries with two pretty proudhistories. It’s just such an important game.”The short boundaries at Warner Park have raised several eyebrows inthe opening four matches of the tournament, with many punditspredicting record totals in Saturday’s match. “As a batsman you alwayslook at a ground and target certain areas,” Hussey said. “At Auckland,for instance, it’s slightly off-centre for the left-hander, so you lookto adapt. But I don’t change my training too much. I just make surethe basics are in order then practise a few hard-hitting shots at theend.”Even so, Australia will have taken note of the success that Scotland’stail had against South Africa’s death bowlers, Andrew Hall and CharlLangeveldt, clubbing them for 55 runs in five overs on Tuesday. “Idon’t really want to say they’ve got a problem in that area,”Hussey said, “because in one-day cricket and on these grounds you can gothe journey a bit in those last few overs.”We’re going to be targeting a lot of areas, not just one or two. We need a complete game of cricket, because if we don’t comeoff in just one of our areas, we’ll come up short. We’ll be focusingon a full 100 overs, rather than just their death bowling, but for usthere’s going to have to be a little more planning from the bowlingpoint of view. We need to get them to hit the ball in different areas,instead of attacking those straight boundaries.”