South African stalwarts Shaun Pollock and Jacques Kallis will be under the spotlight in their World Cup Super Eights match against Ireland in Georgetown on Tuesday.
GEORGETOWN: South African stalwarts Shaun Pollock and Jacques Kallis will be under the spotlight in their World Cup Super Eights match against Ireland in Georgetown on Tuesday.
The pair have been among the premier all-rounders in the game for more than a decade but some patchy performances at the World Cup have raised questions about their roles in the South African team.
Kallis, 31, frittered away a potentially winning position against Australia in Basseterre, St Kitts on March 24 when he scored a slow 48.
In the same match Pollock, 33, conceded 83 runs in 10 overs without a wicket, his worst return in a one-day international. Kallis redeemed himself with a match-winning 86 in South Africa's one-wicket win over Sri Lanka in Georgetown, Guyana on Wednesday.
Pollock, however, went for 46 runs in the eight overs he bowled without reward.
South African coach Mickey Arthur backed both players on the eve of the game against the Irish.
"Teams who play with confidence will target the opposition's strength and teams have done that against Shaun successfully," Arthur told a news conference on Monday.
"But he's an unbelievable performer and after two games in which he has been hit a little bit he's going to come back hard."
Arthur said Pollock would continue to take the new ball for South Africa.
"We back him in that role. He's done a superb job for South Africa for so long and it would be too drastic a step at this stage."
Arthur said Kallis' problems had been ironed out.
"He got it wrong (against Australia), we debriefed, we discussed it," Arthur said. "He is going to get it wrong once in a while but his response was unbelievable and he virtually batted us to victory against Sri Lanka."
South Africa are expected to win on Tuesday but when the teams met in a warm-up match in St Augustine, Trinidad on March 5, Ireland reduced the favourites to 91 for eight, and South Africa's winning margin of 35 runs was unconvincing.
"We won the toss and on a wicket that was damp and decided to bat, simply because we were playing all our batsmen," Arthur said.
"They bowled very well and got balls in the right area and we were in a little bit of trouble. Had it been an all-out World Cup game we would have won the toss and bowled, for sure. But we wanted to give our batsmen a run. We took it as a practice game but this is totally different. We know what they offer, we've been through their team, we've analysed them, we're far more prepared than we were in Trinidad."
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