18 September 2004	Saturday	02 Shaban 1425

LONDON, Sept 17: South Africa skipper Graeme Smith is itching to prove the doubters wrong when he leads his team into a make-or-break Champions Trophy clash against the West Indies at The Oval on Saturday.

The winner will have a mouth watering semifinal date against either Pakistan or India to look forward to, while the losers will be heading home. South Africa ended a run of 10 successive one-day defeats when they hammered Bangladesh by nine wickets in their opening match, but they know they face a much tougher task against the West Indies on Saturday.

"We've done our work, the confidence seems like it's there and now it's just about going out and putting in the performance we know we can provide. I think we're as well prepared as we can be," said Smith.

"We managed to get a warm-up game in on Wednesday which was a good workout for us and we got most of our work done. As we stand now we are fairly confident for Saturday."

Smith said he is not too happy about playing on a strip already used once in the tournament and accepts the winning the toss could be crucial. "It's always going to be interesting what to do when you are playing on a used pitch with a bit of juice up front," said Smith.

"It's a bit of a toss-up what you want to do. We'll look at the pitch, see how dry it's looking and how worn it is from the Australia-New Zealand game and make a decision.

"It is a little bit disappointing in a world tournament that they are using pitches for two round-robin games but there's not much we can do about it now apart from going out there and using what you've been given and making the most of it."

South Africa, winners of the first Champions Trophy in 1998, are desperate to emerge from a slump in fortunes in the ODIs. They failed to get out of the group stage at the World Cup in 2003 - a disastrous performance which led to Smith taking over from Shaun Pollock as captain.

At the age of 22 years and 82 days, Smith was the youngest skipper in his country's history. "This is an important tournament for us and success is crucial if we are to build a winning culture in the squad.

We also owe our loyal supporters back home a win in a big tournament," admitted the skipper. South Africa will not announce their team until the morning but they are not expected to make any changes from the side which crushed Bangladesh. -AFP