South African swimmers Roland Schoeman and Ryk Neethling are drawing inspiration from a cricket match as they seek to shake up Aus-tralia's dominance of the Commonwealth Games pool.

Schoeman and Neethling, members of South Africa's record-breaking 4x100-meter freestyle relay team at the Athens Olympics, head South Africa's biggest-ever international swim team in a Commonwealth Games aq-uatics program starting tomorrow. Australia is wary of any challengers to its Commonwealth swimming supremacy — particularly while Ian Thorpe and Grant Hackett are out with injury.

Schoeman and Neethling have taken delight in South Africa's win over Australia in a series-deciding limited-overs cricket international win at Johannesburg on Sunday. Australia was in great shape after scoring a world record 438 in the first innings. The South Africans stunned the World Cup champions by amassing 438 in reply.

Most Australians went to bed thinking a win was beyond doubt, and woke to the news that South Africa had won with one ball to spare. "I think it was a huge inspiration," Neethling said. "The next morning, we were all walking tall."

Schoeman was amused by the intense focus on him by Australian newspapers, in-cluding recent reports about him wearing plaster on his right shoulder.

"It's amazing how you wear a patch on your shoulder and suddenly it's some sort of deformity or something super serious," Schoeman, 26, said with a smile yesterday. "It's more preventive than anything, but it's amazing that you can wear something on a body part and it's such a huge attraction. I love it." Neethling said the close attention from the Australian media was a sign of how far South African swimming had advanced.

"Four years ago, you wouldn't hear any of this (rivalry talk)," he said. "I think what happened when we won that relay in Athens put the spotlight of the swimming world on us. Maybe scared some people." Schoeman will be racing Neethling in the 50- and 100-meter freestyle races and the non-Olympic 50-meter butterfly. Both are also on the 4x100 meter relay team. Neethling will also race the 200 freestyle.

Schoeman twice broke the world record in the 50 butterfly at last year's world championships in Montreal, where he also came within 500th of a second of Alex Popov's 50 freestyle world record. He also won silver in the 100 free and bronze in the 50 free in Athens. Neethling finished third in the 100 and 200 free in Montreal.