SYDNEY, Dec 30: Australia may throw the terror-spin twins Shane Warne and Stuart MacGill at the demoralised South Africans in Wednesday’s final cricket Test at the Sydney Cricket Ground.
Leg-spinner MacGill was Sunday added to the Australian squad, which has been boosted to 13.
Australia are chasing a 3-0 whitewash having secured the series with a nine-wicket win at the Melbourne Cricket Ground on Saturday.
“We’ve got the momentum going our way and we’ve got a good record in Sydney,” Waugh said Sunday.
“I don’t know what the wicket’s going to be like but I’d like to think there’ll be a bit of turn.
“We’re playing good cricket. I’d like to win it three-nil.”
The omens are there for two wrist-spinners to play in Sydney. So far Warne has taken 11 wickets in the series and MacGill claimed nine for New South Wales in the tour match against the Proteas here last week.
MacGill is sure the SCG pitch will take spin and that he can operate in tandem with Warne.
“The pitch I took nine wickets on against the South Africans at the SCG had no grass on it at all, but one thing I have found over the years is that it always turns at the SCG whether there is grass on the surface or not,” MacGill said Sunday.
He thought his attacking style could complement the pressure exerted by Warne and Glenn McGrath.
“The last time I bowled with Shane in a Test at the SCG (against England in 1998-99) a feature of that seemed to be that they were really concentrating on keeping him out,” he said.
“If there’s someone at the other end who has an aura about them, like Shane or Glenn McGrath, then you find it makes your job a whole lot easier.
“As Shane has enjoyed some success in this series already I’m hoping that will be the case again if I’m selected.”
Australian squad: Steve Waugh (captain), Matthew Hayden, Justin Langer, Ricky Ponting, Mark Waugh, Damien Martyn, Adam Gilchrist, Shane Warne, Brett Lee, Andy Bichel, Glenn McGrath, Brad Williams, Stuart MacGill.
Meanwhile, McGrath has branded South Africa’s tactics as negative after they crashed to defeat in the first two matches of their three-Test series.
“From the start of this series, I’ve said the South Africans are under more pressure because the series has been built up so much,” McGrath said in a column in The Sunday Herald Sun.
“It was up to them to raise their game and be competitive against us, but so far they’ve been unable to do that and we’ve completely dominated them.
“The way they bat and bowl is very negative and I don’t know how they expect to beat us while they are playing like that.”
South Africa came into the series as Australia’s closest rivals but McGrath, who has taken 68 wickets from 14 Tests this year, said they had shown they could not handle pressure.
The bowler said some of Australia’s batsmen had noticed how quiet the South Africans fielders became once a big partnership started to build.
“So I’ll say it again...I still don’t believe the South Africans think they can beat us.”
Matthew Hayden, meanwhile, the highest run-scorer in Test cricket this year, said Australia were keen on improving still further.
Hayden, who scored his fifth century of the year in the second Test in his total of 1,391 runs from 14 Tests for the calendar year, said: “We’re still wanting to train, we’re still wanting to become better players and be the best at what we do.”
He told Australian television Sunday: “We’re very proud of our title of being number one and we want to maintain our strength in world cricket.”
—AFP/Reuters