After claiming the top one day international spot from Australia and giving Ricky Ponting’s men a close fight for the number one spot in Tests, South African skipper Graeme Smith wants to prove their supremacy in the shortest version of the game by winning the ICC World Twenty20 2009 title.Despite consistently being one of the best sides in world cricket, South Africa has little to show for its success. The team has only one trophy to its name when it won the ICC Knock Out Tournament (now ICC Champions Trophy) in its inaugural year in 1998.
After a successful last few years of international cricket, Graeme Smith is looking forward to this year to add more silverware to South Africa’s tally of ICC cups.
"We have had a wonderful past 12 months which has included winning away Test series in both England and Australia and winning home-and-away ODI series against Australia to gain top spot in the ICC rankings," the Proteas skipper was quoted as saying to PA.
But with two international ICC tournaments scheduled in the next few months, Smith is hungry for success.
"One of the boxes we still want to tick is to win a major ICC championship and we have two chances to do that in the ICC World T20 next month and again in the ICC Champions Trophy which will be held in South Africa at the end of September."
What bodes well for South Africa is the fact that twelve of its fifteen members represented various franchises at the recently concluded Indian Premier League.
South African players like Jean Paul Duminy, AB de Villiers, Jacques Kallis, Roelof van der Merwe and Herschelle Gibbs played some big knocks at the IPL which will hold them in good stead for the ICC World Twenty20 2009, which gets underway in England this week.
"I have been very happy with the form our players have shown in the IPL in the run-up to the World T20 and this augurs well for a good performance."
South Africa will play its first warm-up game against Pakistan tomorrow.
They are placed in Group D along with New Zealand and Scotland.
