SA now World Cup favourites, says Fleming

South Africa have earned the right to be described as favourites for the 2003 World Cup after winning the triangular one-day series in Australia on Friday, New Zealand captain Stephen Fleming has said.

Shaun Pollock's South Africans beat New Zealand by six wickets in Sydney to clinch the best-of-three finals series 2-0 and Fleming said they were now the team to beat at next year's World Cup, to be staged in South Africa.

"A lot can happen in 12 months but, at this stage, they're the form horse," Fleming said.

"They play a very good style of cricket and they're a well-rounded team."

South Africa finished the round-robin phase of the competition in first place with New Zealand second and Australia third.

They beat New Zealand by eight wickets in Wednesday's first final in Melbourne.

Pollock said his team's victory in the one-day tournament was testimony to the side's fighting qualities.

The Proteas crashed to a 3-0 series clean sweep in the tests against Australia and were in last place going into the final round of the triangular series.

TURNING AROUND

"I think it was awesome for the guys to turn things around they way they did after the tests," Pollock said.

"It's all about how you deal with adversity and we showed plenty of character by the way we fought back."

New Zealand were the form team throughout the first half of the one-day tournament but lost their final three matches and only just squeezed into the finals.

"We're disappointed the way things finished for us," Fleming said.

"I guess, if you look at the tournament, our energies were all spent in the first half and then we just made mistakes at crucial times.

"It's not a mental thing, we just keep making mistakes under pressure, but I guess if you look back at the tour you can say we developed and we'll be a good team in 12 months."

There are no let-ups for any of the three teams after the triangular one-day series with New Zealand hosting England and South Africa entertaining Australia over the next two months.

Mail Cricket Editor