New Zealand feel ‘lucky’ to face South Africa in Lahore for Champions Trophy semi-final

The Kiwis had success on this ground in the warm up matches and feel confident they can perform strongly again

(REUTERS)

New Zealand bring "positive emotions" on their return to Lahore for the Champions Trophy semi-final against South Africa after good results during the Pakistan tri-series, coach Gary Stead said on Tuesday.

New Zealand beat a vastly different South Africa team by six wickets in Lahore three weeks ago, two days after beating Pakistan at the same venue in warm up games for the ODI tournament.

"We are lucky. We've had some experience playing here in the tri-series before the tournament actually kicked off," Stead told reporters on a video call.

"We've got some on-ground experience and I guess some positive emotions to fall back on the way we played here as well."

Though losing to India on a spin-friendly wicket in Dubai, New Zealand were happy how their three-pronged pace attack of Matt Henry, Kyle Jamieson and Will O'Rourke performed to restrict the South Asians to 249-9.

Stead, also a selector, said it was likely New Zealand would stick with the same trio and complement them with spin from their contingent of all-rounders as they did against India and in the previous win against Bangladesh in Rawalpindi.

New Zealand produced 300-plus totals in both their recent wins in Lahore, and Stead said taking wickets in the early and middle overs would be key to prevent South Africa from batting big.

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"We haven't been down to the ground yet to see if we're on a used wicket or not, but generally these wickets are pretty good batting surfaces," he added, "They don't bounce too much."

South Africa will have a very different team than the line-up that played in the tri-series.

Tabraiz Shamsi has not appeared at the Champions Trophy but Stead suggested the left-arm wrist spinner might be called up in place of paceman Lungi Ngidi.

"They're a very, very good side and we're going to have to play right near our best to beat them," he added.