Pretoria-born New Zealand fast bowler Neil Wagner says beating the Proteas is no different to him than beating any other team.
Wagner took three wickets in his side’s comprehensive first Test victory over South Africa in Christchurch last week and scored 49 off 56 balls after coming in as a nightwatchman.
“They are a quality team and we really want to, obviously, beat them in the series,” said the 35-year-old ahead of the second Test at Hagley Oval, which starts on Friday.
“People ask me that question, obviously, because I was born there. But I’ve been living here for 14 years now, so it’s something I don’t think about too much, or it doesn’t really feel that way. I probably only really know two or three guys in that team anyway. So, it’s a lot different from what it was when I started my career personally.
“But to beat any team … we’ve achieved a couple of things throughout the years now, beating England for the first time in I don’t know how many years. It’s the same no matter who you play, we saw that a couple of months ago when we played against Bangladesh, how they played in our conditions.
“Test cricket against any Test team is pretty tough, and every win is one you can treasure. This will be pretty special, but it’s no different to any of the other ones.”
