South Africa embark upon their 72-day long India tour starting Friday. It sure is a long tour, but the visitors are confident they are up for the challenge. South Africa T20I captain Faf du Plessis reckoned it was important to stay mentally fresh throughout the tour and looked to fall back on his IPL experience to cope up with the test ahead.
“Any place that is not home but you are touring for a long time can be quite tough mentally,” du Plessis said. “India is one of the toughest places to be at. I personally can fall back on my time in the IPL where the tournament goes on for seven weeks. I certainly remember my first year playing for Chennai Super Kings and I didn’t play any cricket. I found it really challenging mentally but gradually you find out a way to work on it. It is important that you motivate your team and how you enjoy yourself away from the game. Our team management has a few plans on trying mentally to make that tour short because it can get quite long; especially with the Test matches right at the end.”
Shifting focus to the T20I, a lot has been spoken about the pitch in Dharamsala. Chief Curator Sunil Chauhan had told BCCI.TV that the pitch would hold true for the entire forty overs and will prove to be a sporting one. du Plessis hoped that the pitch had a lot of runs and carry for his quicker bowlers. He also felt that the dew would play a huge role and it would be quite a challenge to bowl under such conditions.
“It was a big surprise last night coming to practice and see that the dew was there at half past six. I reckon it will be the same for both teams. Dew is never a nice thing for a bowling team or for a fielding team because the ball gets slippery. The ball doesn’t spin as much, so hopefully the wet ball takes the advantage away from the Indian spinners and they play into our hands a little bit.”
To counter dew, the South African team practiced with wet balls. “It is just for the guys to get used to batting with the wet ball,” du Plessis said. “It is something that you always want to make sure and tick that box in training in terms of preparation if the ball gets wet. You don’t want to get into a situation where the spinners get the ball in the middle of the game and they can’t control it and they are bowling full tosses. Also from a seamer’s point of view, we don’t want our bowlers to be bowling beamers at the end. We have done some work with the wet ball.”
Talking about spinners and bowling armory, Faf showed immense faith in his lead spinner Imran Tahir. “I believe our team is traveling to India with the knowledge that we have got a spinner who can also win us games. Imran Tahir has proven it right across the world that he changes games, especially in the white ball format. He has positively changed the past two years of South African cricket; he has changed the way we play. He has gotten us wickets in the middle overs where we have always relied on pace to strike for us. Now, certainly our success as a one-day team or T20I team weighs heavily on his shoulders.
“It is nice to know that we have also got that weapon in the spinning department. JP Duminy is seen as a part time spinner but he has also had real success especially in T20 cricket; he gets wickets all the time. Then we have got a young spinner in Eddie Leie which is great for him to come here and learn. He can learn how to bowl on these pitches and almost tap into Imran’s knowledge. I feel very confident in our spinning options this tour,” he elaborated.
On the batting front, apart from the exploits of Ab de Villiers, Hashim Amla etc, du Plessis sounded extremely positive of the hard-hitting capabilities of David Miller. “I think Miller is a player who has had real success in IPL cricket. He is the guy who knows these conditions, especially because he has played a bit of IPL cricket here. It is international cricket, but as a batsman it is important to take a lot of learning from the conditions you have done well or teams you have done well against. You would know the bowlers and you can take a lot from that. We know what Dave can do and I know that the Indian team fears his hitting capabilities. He is a real strong hitter and hopefully he can have a good series.”
