A - The record we had away from home was remarkable. It was by a long way the best touring team. That was something we were incredibly proud of. That changed. We went to India and we lost 4-0 there. We lost a lot of experienced guys. But I think it’s going to be tough for any team traveling to India in the next two or three years. I expect that India are going to keep the No 1 ranking, certainly for the next year with all the home tests they’ve got. You can’t just rely on playing well in your home conditions.
The team that’s No 1 needs to play the best away from home. That’s something we need to start building up again. We were declining in our performances from the No 1 position. But we’ve started again. We’ve started a new journey as a team. We don’t want to be that team anymore. We’ve got our own goals that we want to achieve. That was one of the most important things we needed to change as a team.
For a year or so we were just trying to play in the shadow of the team that was there. With a lot of those personalities missing it was difficult to do that. I think we’ve got a better direction as a team now, where we want to go. We started well against New Zealand. But this will be a nice test to see how we go against a strong Australian team.
Q – Have you chatted to AB de Villiers or Graeme Smith before the series?
A - The most important thing for me as a leader is to put your ego aside and try and ask and learn as much as you can because there’s a lot of valuable information out there. I’ve spoken to AB. He’s enjoying life in South Africa but he misses us. I’m supposed to speak to Graeme a bit later just to try get some ideas of how he did things when he was over here because he was a very successful captain. I’m looking forward to that conversation. It’s important. There’s a lot of valuable info in those two cricket brains.
Q – Dale Steyn… is his importance over-stated?
A - Dale’s the senior pro in our team. He’s been one of those guys who’s really stepped up in terms of working with the young guys. He’s been remarkable outside of the cricket field. In team meetings and discussions, Dale leads that very well. With all those wickets and all that experience there’s no better guy to learn from. He’s also realised that he wants to do that now.
There was maybe a period of time where all of us were just playing cricket. There’s more to it. Dale’s got so much knowledge inside of him and he’s been brilliant. I’m hoping he breaks that record in the first test. He’s been bowling well. He’s had his shoulder problems of late, but he’s an important bowler for us in this series and hopefully he can stay strong right through the series. We need him. Hopefully he can bowl at good intensity and for long periods of time.
