ISSUE 25: Prepping for tours abroad

Cricket is a game with many variables. It isn’t as simple as picking an XI and just telling them to go out to the middle and play.

Weather conditions, field conditions and the quality of the pitch can affect an outcome of a match quite drastically.

In sport, we often hear about home advantage playing its role in a game, but in cricket, the toughness of going abroad and getting a positive result is harder than other sports.

It’s not just about surviving the hostility of the local fans in the stadium, there are natural variables unique to location that also have a massive say in the result of a game.

The Proteas have had many successful tours overseas and beating Australia and England has always been on the top of our list.
We have managed to cause quite a few upsets against those cricketing nations in their own backyard. A lot of effort has gone into SA finally becoming competitive against those two nations in particular.

Whereas a trip to India, has always been seen as a daunting task, particularly in Test cricket.
There have been many camps to try and combat India’s biggest weapon, which is very much unique to them – spinning conditions.

South Africa have lost more games away than home games in Test cricket – 59 won, 75 lost and 65 drawn – which is an indication of the difficulty preparing for overseas conditions.

In ODIs and T20Is we have managed to edge towards a positive Win/Loss ratio, but there is still a lot of effort put into the preparation process before a team plays an away series no matter the format.

For this Issue, we spoke to a number of players and coaches to find out more about how teams prepare for overseas conditions and tours.

This has given us a better understanding of what goes into preparing for tours abroad, and how players aim to emulate overseas conditions locally to give them an edge before leaving South Africa.

So sit back, grab a snack, a beverage and enjoy our 25th edition of our Monthly Magazine.
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