Durban - As the Proteas prepare for the second ODI against Sri Lanka in Durban on Wednesday (1.30pm), Hashim Amla feels that the games leading up to the Champions Trophy in England in June, are great preparation for that illusive ICC trophy.
Amla, whether talking about his own form and projections, or that of the national team, says the marker the team put down against Australia last year, and their form against Sri Lanka in this series, bodes well for the Champions Trophy.
The Champions trophy pits the top eight teams in the ODI rankings against each other in a prestigious tournament that holds a lot of sway for the South Africans whose trophy cabinet is embarrassingly bare. But Amla hopes that the settled squad and recent powerful performances will put the Proteas in good stead come June.
“Winning the last series as convincingly as we did (against Australia), being 1-0 up here, it is building very well,” Amla mused ahead of their second ODI. "The coaches and the captain have had to put the structures in place for us to succeed and and it is pleasing that things are working well.”
It has been an agreeable purple patch for the Proteas, but in a game as fickle as cricket, the might Hash is not taking this good form for granted.
“We are not under the illusion that everything is hunky-dory and things will keep going up and up, there will be some challenges in between here and the Champions Trophy and when that comes you have to be patient and go through it. But at the moment we are playing good cricket, and we are settled and we will take it from there.”
Amla and the Proteas will meet Sri Lanka again in England, and while that may sit well with the South Africans, he agrees that it is also beneficial to a young Sri Lankan team to face the Proteas too.
“We do play Sri lanka in the Champions trophy,” he went on. “So both teams will benefit from playing each other now. We are facing their bowling attack, both spinners and seamers, and you get a sense of what to expect in the Champions trophy. They are a good attack, and a good team, and though we might have won the first game convincingly, we can’t look too far ahead.”