South Africa's selectors to take hard line

Graeme Smith has warned that South Africa's selectors are going to start taking a firmer line on players who do not perform consistently during South Africa's upcoming tours. Following the tour to Sri Lanka in August, South Africa travel to England for the Champions Trophy, to India for a Test series, and back home for five Tests against England.

"This year's going to be more cut-throat. We've got to start delivering," Smith told The Sunday Times in South Africa ahead of the team's four-day training camp in Pretoria. "The leeway now is gone. There are three tours coming up and there's going to be nowhere to hide for anyone, including me. I'm aware of that and I'm looking forward to that challenge.

"All of us can improve from last year, can become more consistent, can become harder, can win more games for our team, can handle situations better under pressure," he added. "There are a lot of us who can look at ourselves and improve.

"I want to see us taking bigger steps in getting certain positions right, handling pressure well in one-day cricket. If we need to defend 60 in 10 overs at the death we've got guys who can do it. If we need to get 100 off 110 balls with four or five down we've got guys who can finish those games for us. That's where we've let ourselves down, especially in the last year in those crunch 50-50 situations."

This will be Smith's first tour of Sri Lanka, and he will be leading the side in two Tests and five one-dayers. South Africa drew their last Test series in Sri Lanka in 2000, but were thrashed 3-0 in the one-dayers, and struggled against Muttiah Muralitharan's spin on his home turf in both formats.

"I know we lost badly there the last time," added Smith. "We've got six or seven guys who have been there before and speaking to some of them, they say they got a major wake-up call, they didn't realise how much it would turn. So we've had a bit of experience."