Symonds on track for South Africa

Andrew Symonds, Australia's pivotal allrounder, looks set to be passed fit for Australia's crucial Group A encounter against South Africa, although a final decision will be delayed until the eve of Saturday's match.

"He's pretty much trained unrestricted, or with limited restriction, so they [the selectors] have had a good chance to look at him themselves," Alex Kountouris, the team physiotherapist, said. "He's going alright. His batting is unrestricted, his bowling is unrestricted. Most parts of his fielding are unrestricted. He's coming along pretty well. We're just building up his throwing."

The throwing aspect would appear to be the biggest barrier to Symonds' early recall. Though his recovery from a torn right biceps is ahead of schedule, he has been attempting returns of no more than 25-30 metres which, even on a ground as notoriously small as Warner Park, is short of a full boundary's length.

"From my point of view, I just want to get him right and obviously I want it to be 100% but I'm realistic, " said Kountouris. "He's had surgery not that long ago, so I'm just trying to get him to the highest possible level that I can, and let the others make the decision on what he can and can't do, and whether they want to play him or not.

"We haven't actually cleared him to play, there's still a couple more things that we want him to do until we reach that point and we've still got a couple more days to do it. But he's got a very positive attitude. He's not demanding [selection], but he's confident with what he can do, which is what you want. You want someone to be positive after coming back from a long-term injury."

Symonds is not the only member of the Australian squad who is itching to get stuck into their first big contest of this World Cup. "The boys are so pumped up for this game, they can't wait," Michael Hussey, whose contributions have been limited by the successes of his colleagues higher up the order, said. "It's a huge game and we want to be tested. We want a real serious contest and see how it pans out."

Recent Australia-South Africa encounters have been marked by a glut of comments flying back and forth between the two camps, but for this match, the hype has been more measured. "The teams have a healthy respect for each other," Hussey said, "but I think they've realised that that sort of banter doesn't really work.

"You can have all the mind games you want and all the slanging matches going back and forth. But at the end of the day I don't think it really works at all. What matters is out on the field. It's how well you play the game. These are two proud countries with two pretty proud histories. It's just such an important game."

The short boundaries at Warner Park have raised several eyebrows in the opening four matches of the tournament, with many pundits predicting record totals in Saturday's match. "As a batsman you always look at a ground and target certain areas," Hussey said. "At Auckland, for instance, it's slightly off-centre for the left-hander, so you look to adapt. But I don't change my training too much. I just make sure the basics are in order then practise a few hard-hitting shots at the end."

Even so, Australia will have taken note of the success that Scotland's tail had against South Africa's death bowlers, Andrew Hall and Charl Langeveldt, clubbing them for 55 runs in five overs on Tuesday. "I don't really want to say they've got a problem in that area," Hussey said, "because in one-day cricket and on these grounds you can go the journey a bit in those last few overs.

"We're going to be targeting a lot of areas, not just one or two. We need a complete game of cricket, because if we don't come off in just one of our areas, we'll come up short. We'll be focusing on a full 100 overs, rather than just their death bowling, but for us there's going to have to be a little more planning from the bowling point of view. We need to get them to hit the ball in different areas, instead of attacking those straight boundaries."