South Africa series ideal opportunity to gel well before World T20: Smith

Heading into the 2016 ICC World Twenty20, Australia have made some radical changes to the side. While the performance in the Big Bash League (BBL) 2015-16 has played a key role in the inclusion of a few players, the 3-0 loss against India in the Twenty20 International series at home too has led to some ousters.
Peter Nevill, Adam Zampa and Ashton Agar are all yet to make their T20I debut as Australia take on South Africa in a three-match series ahead of the World T20. With Aaron Finch recovering from his injury and three other players vying for the opener's spot, Australia are yet to find their right combination.
"It's about moving forward and trying to get everything going in the right direction before the World Cup. We've got a few options for guys that can open the batting, there's about four guys vying for a spot there. The bowlers are working hard to get into the eleven but I think it will take a whole squad to win a World Cup," Smith said on Monday (February 29).
"For us it's about playing some T20 cricket together, we haven't played a great deal of T20 over the last couple of years so it's a great opportunity for us to try and gel together as a unit before the World Cup."
Steve Smith, who has led Australia in only a solitary T20I so far, has been handed the responsibility of leading the side in World T20 to be played in India in March-April.
"Hopefully the South African curators can try and make the pitches a little bit slow and turning, I think that would benefit both sides, so we'll wait and see what they come up with," he added.
Despite Australia's dominance in Tests and One-Day Internationals, where they are No. 1 and world champions respectively, they haven't found similar success in the shortest format. Smith believes that the game has evolved following the advent of T20.
"I think it's changed a lot, guys have got so many different deliveries nowadays - slower-ball bouncers, wide yorkers, different kinds of slower balls, things like that. Guys are able to hit the ball 360 degrees, which is hard to stop. I just think the game has changed so much, it's moving forward and that's great."
Speaking about plans to stop AB de Villiers, one of the finest batsmen across formats currently, in the upcoming series, Smith said that even as he is a difficult player to stop, there are a few ideas in place.
"It's very difficult to do, he's one of the most destructive - if not the most destructive - batsman in the world and he does hit the ball 360 degrees, so when he is going he's very tough to stop," Smith said. "We're going to have a few plans in place for him that will hopefully work, but he's a terrific player and very hard to stop."
"They're a very good T20 team, they've got some class players that can take the game away from you very quickly. So, for us, we want to win every series we play and I guess in the back of our minds we know there's a World Cup not long away. But it's about focusing on this series and trying to do what we can to win," he concluded.