Bracewell looking forward to clash of captains

John Bracewell, the New Zealand coach, is looking forward to Stephen Fleming and Graeme Smith resuming their fractious rivalry later this month when New Zealand arrive in South Africa for a series of five one-day internationals.

Fleming, the experienced New Zealand captain, launched an astonishing, pre-meditated verbal assault on Smith, his young counterpart, during the 2003-04 series, which rattled the South African. The incident helped New Zealand to a rare, crushing 5-1 ODI series win over South Africa, their first series win over the visitors of any kind in 73 years. The Test series ended 1-1.

Referring to the commonly-held belief that South Africa had traditionally bullied New Zealand and held a mental edge over them, Bracewell told the Sunday Star-Times, "I think we've overcome that African barrier. And I'm certainly looking forward to seeing what South Africa's attitude is to us touring there.

"They certainly went into a seige mentality over here, thinking everybody in the country was picking on them, not just Stephen Fleming. Smith, as a young captain, thought everything was targeted at him personally and that will only have been a hardening experience for him."

Bracewell also revealed that the team will get together in Singapore, en route to Johannesburg, to formulate a strategy to counter, what he expects to be an extremely focused South African side. "There's no doubt they will be well prepared for us because this will be a vengeance trip for them, which is not surprising as that's part of the Afrikaaner mentality to be honest.

"We'll meet in Singapore as a senior group and discuss what we think our strategy should be towards their senior players and whether we should continue with the same aggressive tone we had in New Zealand."