• Boucher hoping for ‘proper headache’

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    Proteas coach Mark Boucher says their warm-up matches against England A will give all squad members the chance to stake a claim for selection.

    The matches will take place at the Cooper Associates County Ground in Taunton on Tuesday and Thursday, with the three-match England-Proteas ODI series starting on 19 July.

    “We’ve got quite a few options and these games that we’ll be playing in the next few days will hopefully allow us to understand and get to know where the players are as individuals,” said Boucher at the Proteas arrival media conference. “So we have quite a good idea, barring one or two extra batters, who our front lineup is going to be.

    “We’ll just have to see how the form plays itself out and hopefully we get the proper headache of having everyone in the runs.”

    Boucher explained what he and his coaching team were hoping to achieve from the two warm-up games.

    “There are 17 players, so as much as we can we’ll try to give everyone a go. Unfortunately, it’s two games of cricket – in the first one we’ve opted for a game where we’ll try and get all our batters to bat and then all of our bowlers to bowl. So, we don’t know how the game’s going to pan out.

    “We’re having training and practices around these two games now where we’ll try to accommodate everyone. It’s quite difficult to do that when you’ve got 17 guys to look after.

    “The second game will be a List A game so it’s basically the 11 that you choose, and I’d like to think that it’s going to be close to what we are looking to play in the first game [against England].”

    Boucher said managing a bigger squad would be a challenge but that it is one they are used to.

    “It’s not new to us where we’ve had big squads of even 19. I think that communication is key and the players need to understand that out of your squad, only 11 can actually go on to the park.

    “In the short period of time that we’ve got before the first ODI, we need to look after those 11 players as we get close to the starting game, so we’ll see what we can do to try and accommodate everyone. The conversations will be had and hopefully everyone gets an opportunity to put their case forward.”

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    Simon Borchardt