BANGALORE (India), Nov 18: South Africa all rounder Jacques Kallis believes the current squad can go on to become the country’s best-ever one-day combination.

“There are many young guys in the side that are now producing their best,” he said on Friday. “Once we get a bit more experience and play a lot more in the sub-continent as well, we are going to become a very good side.”

The South Africans, who play the second one-dayer against India on Saturday, are unbeaten in 20 matches since January.

Leading 1-0 in the five-match series, they can equal one part of Australia’s record of going unbeaten for 21 games in a row in 2003. However, Australia had won all of them.

Kallis said South Africa’s best squad was the one which reached the 1999 World Cup semi-final in England, where it was eliminated after a heart-breaking tie with Australia.

“We are well on our way to getting where we were with that 1999 side,” he said. “That was probably our strongest side, this is going to become one of the strongest.”

Kallis also believes that the pressure would be on India to win before an expectant home crowd on Saturday after having lost opening one-dayer comprehensively.

With tourists one-up in the series after their five-wicket win in Hyderabad, obviously the pressure was on India, Kallis said, who top-scored with an unbeaten 68 to fashion the win.

Noting that South Africa had never won a one-day series in India, he said: “we have to make sure that we are on top of our game and don’t fall short. We are pretty confident that we can win the series.”

But he said his side expected India to stage a fight-back and come up with all guns blazing. “It’s important that we do our best in things we can control.”

On South Africa close to equalling Australia’s record of 21-match unbeaten streak, Kallis said they would seek to extend that run as long as they could but made it clear that they would not do anything differently from what they have been doing in previous 20 games.

“We are proud of our record and performance (but) we take one game at a time.”

It has been an amazing turnaround for South Africa, who had just one win in their previous 13 games.

Paceman Charl Langeveldt is an injury concern after suffering a back injury in Hyderabad.

India’s Sachin Tendulkar will equal former Pakistan all rounder Wasim Akram’s world record 356 one-day appearances when he turns out on Saturday.

Tendulkar already holds the records for one-day aggregate (13,875 runs), most hundreds (38), most consecutive matches (185) and man-of-the-match awards (51).—Agencies