Arthur confident South Africa will live up to expectations

Mickey Arthur, the South Africa coach, has said it will be interesting to see how his team copes with the tag of being favourites during Australia's visit to the country later this month. South Africa won the Test and ODI series on their recent tour of Australia, and Arthur felt "for the first time ever" they will go into a series against them as favourites.

"Australia will be here in three weeks and we're under no illusions they are really hurting and are going to be far angrier," Arthur said on the team's arrival from Australia. "With success comes expectations and we'll be playing in front of our home crowds so that will be a lot more difficult. But I'm confident the players have it in them to repeat their success."

More than a thousand fans gathered at Johannesburg airport to greet the team, which achieved a maiden Test-series victory in Australia. "When we arrived back here after losing in the semi-finals of the World Cup [to Australia in 2007] we had to leave via the back door," he said. "But this has been a helluva reception and a very humbling experience. We left Perth this morning as a very proud team and now we are even prouder, the magnitude of what we have done has really hit us after this fantastic reception."

Arthur said winning over the Australian crowds had been a memorable experience for the team. "To see [captain] Graeme Smith walking in front of the Noble Stand in Sydney, which gave us all sorts of abuse the last time we were there, and getting a standing ovation was phenomenal.

"I think we won them over through our humility, we were extremely humble when we won. How you handle winning and losing is very important and the team was superb on and off the field. We showed a lot of respect for Australia and I think they recognised that."

Arthur was pleased with his team's effort through the demanding tour. "Our success was down to the leadership of both captains [Smith in the Tests and Johan Botha in the one-dayers] but it also calls for an incredible work ethic, courage and commitment from the team and they left Australia as heroes."

Australia begin their South Africa tour with a warm-up game starting on February 20 after which they will play three Tests, two Twenty20 internationals and five ODIs.