Cape Town - The South African influence will be of great importance to the Royal Challengers Bangalore (RCB) in the Champions League Twenty20, RCB captain Anil Kumble said on Tuesday.

Two of South Africa’s top players - world number one Test bowler Dale Steyn and world number one Test all-rounder Jacques Kallis - will be turning out for RCB, who also have a South African coach in former national coach Ray Jennings.

“Jacques and Dale are both world class players, and they know the local conditions very well,” said Kumble. 

“They can share their knowledge of the conditions and that should be of great benefit to the team as a whole.

“We are very happy to be playing this tournament in South Africa. We did well in the IPL in South Africa last year and that should boost our confidence. We are hoping to go one step further and win the cup this time.”

RCB were the runners-up in the IPL in 2009.

He denied that the three IPL teams in the CLT20 were under any additional pressure to do well in the tournament.

“The pressure is the same for all the teams - I don’t think it’s any different for the IPL teams. It’s a Twenty20 competition and it’s anybody’s game.

“In a short tournament like this, it’s important to start well,” he added.

“We’re looking to start well and we are not going to put ourselves under any additional pressure of saying we’re an Indian team so we have to do well. We just want to take one game at a time and ensure that we get the right result.”

Kumble pointed out that it was the start of the season for the Indian teams, and some of the teams were coming into the tournament off the back of a lot of international cricket.

“But we have gelled well as a unit, and we are looking forward to the tournament.  We don’t see a lot of each other, but we have always worked very well as a team.”

RCB’s first game will be against the West Indies champions, Guyana, at Centurion on Sunday at 17:30.

The CLT20 extravaganza, which features 23 matches over 17 days,  runs from September 10-26.

Tickets for CLT20 are available from Computicket. Tickets are priced from R30 to R200. Fans can also purchase tickets directly from the host venues.