South Africa likely to rotate in Grenada

May 5, 2001

South African captain Shaun Pollock put a day of travel headaches behind him as he considered the challenging awaiting his team on Grenada, the ninth port of call for the tourists in a little over two months. South Africa meet the West Indies in the third and fourth one-day internationals on the island on Saturday and Sunday.

The team only reached their beach-side hotel outside the capital St George's at 10.30pm on Thursday. The squad were due to travel from Antigua via Barbados and Trinidad, but delays forced a diversion direct to Grenada, an unplanned move which may have upset a few passengers, but also avoided total chaos.

"It's going to be hard work playing back-to-back games," Pollock said as he made his way to voluntary nets. "We've done it in Australia before but we don't often do it."

The heavy workload for many of the senior players is almost certain to mean that some of the players who have yet to feature in the series will get a run-out in Grenada, although Pollock himself is cheerfully resigned to five more games before a well-earned break.

"As much as we'd like to win both the games here, we also have an opportunity to rest a few guys and give opprtunities to others. We have a core of players which is unlikely to change, but we can rotate the other guys.

"I don't know exactly what we'll do just yet, but we need to keep some freshness in the camp. But it's difficult to rotate the key players.

"I know I've got five matches left, but I've got three months rest after that!"

One of the changes within the side may see Pollock try and capitalise on his superb form with the bat. He was in fact down to come in at number six in the second one-dayer in Antigua, but was not required to come to the crease as Herschelle Gibbs and Jacques Kallis lead South Africa to a resounding eight wicket win to level the series.

Neil McKenzie will have a fitness test on his hamstring injury, but is likely to be given an extra day to find full fitness, in the process allowing Boeta Dippenaar another chance in the middle-order.

There are also likely to be changes in the bowling attack, with Roger Telemachus and Allan Donald both sitting out one of the games this weekend. Makhaya Ntini and Justin Kemp are the men most likely to profit.

South Africa (possible): Gary Kirsten, Herschelle Gibbs, Jacques Kallis, Jonty Rhodes, Boeta Dippenaar, Lance Klusener, Mark Boucher, Shaun Pollock, Justin Ontong, Roger Telemachus, Makhaya Ntini.

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