Kirsten expects Ponting and Hussey to continue battling against South Africa’s pace trio

South Africa coach Gary Kirsten believes that the media hype about Australia’s veteran batting duo of Ricky Ponting and Michael Hussey’s inability to handle the Proteas’ pace trio of Vernon Philander, Dale Steyn and Morne Morkel will encourage the pair to perform better in the last two Test matches.

Ponting once again struggled against the pace trio and made a duck in Australia’s only innings during the first Test at The Gabba in Brisbane, while Hussey proved all his critics wrong by smashing a brilliant century.

“I know through a bit of experience that when you get challenged that you can’t handle something, you step up in that situation. They (Ponting and Hussey) haven’t got the records they’ve got just by pitching. They have some serious class behind them, those guys step up when they need to and we expect nothing less from them in this series,” Kirsten said.

When asked if Australia will be at a disadvantage if all-rounder Shane Watson is ruled out for the second Test at Adelaide, Kirsten said: “We’ve got to bowl well, any guy can score runs in a Test, but we need to do our business right. We have looked at areas than we can exploit within the Australian team. We feel if we can put pressure on them in certain areas then we can make some plays in those big moments.”