Morkel planning ‘barrage of bouncers’ to hassle ‘in form’ Clarke

Sydney: South African fast bowler Morne Morkel has said they are planning to bowl plenty of short deliveries to Australian batsmen, especially in from Michael Clarke, in the second Test match at Adelaide in a desperate bid to safeguard their world number one status.

It might seem a tactic to disrupt Clarke``s supreme batting form after his unbeaten 259 in Brisbane, but all four Proteas pacemen caused him some uncomfortable moments with bouncers at the Gabba. Clarke built his innings on an array of sublime drives and feasted on anything wide, as the quicks failed to exploit his occasional awkwardness ducking or swaying away from the short balls, but Morkel is determined to make amends in the Adelaide Test. “Any batsman struggles with the short ball so we`ll come up with game plans and start working on those sort of things. But that is the plan, to always use the short ball,” the Sydney Morning Herald quoted Morkel, as saying. “We`ve got two an over, so why not use it? The thing is to use it in a clever way and go from there,” he added. “``We need to create more pressure and stop him [Clarke] from rotating the strike, that will be the key,” he said. Morkel also added South Africa`s fancied quicks would have to lift their game to protect the nation`s No. 1 ranking. ANI