SOUTH AFRICA must stop Sachin Tendulkar in tomorrow's World Cup showdown at Hove, but captain Hansie Cronje insisted today: 'India are not a one-man team.'

The sides meet in front of a sell-out 6,500 crowd at Hove with South Africa strong favourites to start their campaign with a victory in Group A.

But Cronje is aware of the other potential matchwinners in the Indian side as well as Tendulkar who is the third highest run scorer in one-day international history.

He said: "People focus a lot on Sachin because he's a great player, but India have a lot of guys who can take a game away from you, they are not a one-man team by any means.

"They have a lot of talented batsmen in players like Azharuddin, Ganguly, Dravid and Jadeja, and their bowling attack is every experienced with the likes of Srinath, Prasad and Kumble.

"We know India is going to be a very tough game. The first three matches could be our hardest in the tournament but I'm not thinking about what follows later, we are just concentrating on the job in hand which is tomorrow."

With Jonty Rhodes fit after a wrist injury, South Africa will be at full strength but there it's still not clear what their batting order will be.

Wicketkeeper Mark Boucher made a century against Kent in Sunday's warm-up game after being promoted to No3 and he could well come in again first wicket down.

"We have got to be flexible as far as the batting is concerned," added Cronje.

"In the last World Cup when we lost in the quarter-final to West Indies we had a situation where three of the guys were coming to the crease having not hardly batted in the tournament before, that's something we have to be aware of here."

The Indians arrived yesterday with a fully fit squad, although there is speculation that Tendulkar, normally an opener in limited overs games, may drop down the order to four to make way for left-hander Sadagopan Ramesh or the 35-year-old all-rounder Robin Singh.

Gates open at 8.45am tomorrow but Sussex again warned today that there are no tickets available, the match having been sold out eight months ago.

South Africa (probable): Kirtsen, Gibbs, Boucher, Cullinan, Kallis, Cronje (capt), Benkenstein or Crookes, Pollock, Kluesener, Boje, Donald.

India (from): Azharuddin, Tendulkar, Dravid, Jadeja, Ramesh or Singh, Kambli, Ganguly, Agarkar, Mongia, Srinath, Prasad, Kumble.

Umpires: David Shepherd (Eng) and Steve Bucknor (WI). Third umpire: Ian Robinson (Zim)

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