Proteas eager to adapt to SL conditions

The Proteas held their first practice session ahead of the ICC World Twenty20 tournament in Sri Lanka on Sunday afternoon and SA bowler Morne Morkel believes the team will have to adapt to conditions as soon as possible.

"It's very humid here at the moment," Morkel said.

"It's almost similar to Chennai and we expect the conditions to be fairly the same."

The Proteas kick off their campaign against Zimbabwe in Hambantota on Thursday in their opening Group C fixture.

South Africa will play New Zealand on Monday in a warm-up tie at the Colts Cricket Ground in Colombo.

"We play a game against New Zealand and for us that is the business day of the tournament. We need to work on our basics and find our feet," Morkel said.

"We have played a lot of cricket over the past few years in the sub-continent, so we can't use that as an excuse. We have to try and control the things that we can control and take it from there."

Morkel said although the majority of the squad may not have played in Sri Lanka before, an encouraging amount of players have played in the sub-continent.

"We have a lot of experience in our team, the players have played a lot of T20 cricket in these conditions with the IPL, so I think we will be fine," he said.

The Proteas' host venue for the group stages is the 26 000-seater Mahinda Rajapakasa Cricket Stadium in Hambantota, which is an unfamiliar setting for the Proteas.

"We're trying to get as much information as we can about the ground (Hambantota), that is going to be important for us," Morkel said.

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