As South Africa embark on their first tour to the subcontinent following their 3-0 hammering against India in 2016, skipper Faf du Plessis has affirmed that they will be banking on their pacers to get them the desired results in Sri Lanka. It will be South Africa’s first Test series following Morne Morkel’s retirement. But to make up for his experience, they have a fit Dale Steyn back in the mix. Steyn will line up alongside Kagiso Rabada, Vernon Philander and Lungisani Ngidi, in what is unarguably the most fearsome pace quartet going around in world cricket at the moment.
“No matter what the conditions are, a big strength of our team will always be our fast bowlers, especially the personnel we have; [Dale] Steyn, Kagiso [Rabada] and Vernon [Philander] are all wicket-taking bowlers,” du Plessis said on Sunday. “Those three have proven they can do it in any conditions.
“Dale has got a fantastic record in the subcontinent and KG [Rabada] is gold. He will be able to do anything, and we’ve got Keshav [Maharaj]. If we want to and there’s an opportunity to, because the conditions are really bad, then we can look at a second spinner.”
Steyn may be fit, but for several series now he has been prone to injuring himself mid-way through the series, and that would be a cause of concern. And it isn’t just Morkel’s absence that they need to deal with. They would also be without AB de Villiers. And in turning conditions, like they found out in the India tour, they don’t have the required technique to cope with the challenge. Even Sri Lanka, who have been largely poor in the longest format in the last couple of years, had handed Australia a 3-0 mauling at home around this time in 2016.
Nonetheless, du Plessis isn’t fretting much on the absence of de Villiers. “AB has only played the last one or two series for this Test team, so he has actually not been playing for a while,” the South African skipper noted. “It will be a nice opportunity for Temba [Bavuma] or somebody else to put his peg in the ground and make the position his own again.”
Dale Steyn returns for Test series in Sri Lanka
South Africa are aiming to restructure their game in spinning conditions in order to forge a team for all conditions. Du Plessis is expecting dry pitches that will aid turn, to greet the visitors in Sri Lanka. And thus, along with Keshav Maharaj, they have also carried Tabraiz Shamsi and Shaun von Berg. The challenge that lays ahead for them is well known. What remains to be seen is how well are they able to cope up with it.
“I am expecting tough conditions,” he said. “I think Sri Lanka will look at it on paper and think we’ve got a better side on paper and I think they will try and make it as dry as possible and spin as much as possible.
“It will be a nice opportunity to test ourselves in tough conditions. There were a lot of lessons learnt by us [in India]. You have to go through something like that to pick your game apart, start from scratch and look at how you get better.”
Sri Lanka may be quite tough opponents in home conditions, especially for teams from outside the subcontinent, but they haven’t been in the best of forms in the longest format in recent times. The matter has only become worse after the ball-tampering saga in the second Test of the recently-concluded series in the West Indies. Sri Lanka’s skipper Dinesh Chandimal was charged for ball tampering but du Plessis believes the charges should be a lot more stricter to curb the practice.
“They have to (be stricter). It’s happening too often. They definitely need to do that as quickly as possible,” he said. “I know they met a while ago but it doesn’t look like anything has changed. It’s still the same rules and stuff, so they need to change that. The penalties needs to be harsher for ball tampering.”
The reaction is quite surprising since du Plessis has himself been charged of ball tampering in the past. Defending his act he also urged the ICC to bring in more clarity as to what constitutes ball tampering. “I have probably said it too much but there are too many grey areas when it comes to the ICC and the rules. One, you want clarity and, two, you want consistency and that’s definitely something that’s not been part of that body of laws for a while now.
“There’s a lot of captains that have been speaking about it for a lot of years so, hopefully, when they do bring in all these new things there will be a lot of clarity and, most importantly, consistency for all teams.”
