Smith 'not tense or nervous'

Graeme Smith said South Africa's history of struggling in crucial encounters would not affect their performance against Australia on Saturday. He was confident his own efforts would be dramatically different from South Africa's 2005-06 tour of Australia, when he passed fifty only once in Tests or ODIs.

Smith's one-day form against Australia picked up after that trip and in his team's 3-2 series win last March, he made two impressive contributions of 119 and 90. "I am a lot more relaxed than I was in Australia," Smith told AFP.

"I'm a lot more experienced and comfortable with things. I went through a bad patch and I think once you go through a bad patch and get out of it you don't put as much pressure on yourself."

Smith said even though South Africa were facing Scotland on Tuesday, they were looking ahead to the Australia match with confidence. "The Australia game is on everyone's mind, it is the big one everyone is looking forward to," he said. "We are not tense or nervous. We are just going to go out there and play to the levels we know we're capable of."

Should South Africa defeat Scotland and Australia, it would set them up strongly in their attempt to reach the World Cup semi-finals for the first time since 1999. "If we do well in these next two games then yes, with some of those top teams not going through, that semi-final begins to look a lot closer," Smith said.

South Africa take on Scotland on Tuesday. If they claim victory, the winner of the Australia-South Africa clash will take an important two-point lead through to the Super Eights phase.