Lord's history and swing conditions favour Proteas — Kallis

The Herald

10-06-2025

Though the exciting Tristan Stubbs has only a little experience of playing in England — 13 T20 matches — Kallis said he hoped the 24-year-old was in the starting XI at Lord's.
'I would like to see Stubbs come through; he has really got game. He's good enough to stick around but he can also play aggressively.
'I would certainly have him in my batting line-up, but then it becomes a tough call who to leave out.
'I would hate not to have a spinner; you have to have that option because you don't know what conditions you're going to get later in the game.
'SA's batting line-up is young, but they are pretty fearless. They just need to go out and play, while sticking to their game plans.
'They need to keep playing the way they did going into the final because that's what has been successful. They just need to execute as a batting line-up,' Kallis said.
Lord's is owned by the Marylebone Cricket Club and is a place of great tradition, having hosted matches since 1787.
Not all of its traditions are good, though the MCC only admitted women as members as recently as 1998.
But the ground exudes an undeniable magic and Proteas batting coach Ashwell Prince, who scored a gutsy century there against England in 2008, said not much has changed at the London venue.
'I've been following the county matches at Lord's and the ground looks good, immaculate and polished.
'Not much has changed and I anticipate a fantastic surface for both batting and bowling,' Prince said.
'We'll have to get there and look at the surface, and it's most important to consider the overhead conditions and the forecast.
'We try not to pay too much attention to external things, but you have to consider that at Lord's.
'My approach as batting coach is to support the batsmen in terms of their mental state, preparation and plans.
'They need to get to a place where they are calm and focused, you need to find the right balance between being calm and having the right amount of aggression. Like Hashim Amla epitomised, and Temba Bavuma has a lot of that too.'
In terms of whether SA would play an extra specialist batsman at Lord's, Prince pointed out that they had very good all-round options to balance their side.
'It's nice to have five bowlers as a general rule and we have different options for that with Marco Jansen, Wiaan Mulder and Senuran Muthusamy.
'We have a strong, really talented squad and we believe we can beat anyone. We're very excited to go over to Lord's,' Prince said. — SportsBoom