The South African cricket team is struggling to come to terms with Indian pitches this time as well. In what can be seen as a déjà vu for the 2015 series, the Proteas team has already lost the first Test by 203 runs and conceded 601/5d in the second Test’s first innings.
Faf du Plessis lost his 9th straight toss in Asia and Kohli pounced on the opportunity to put a mountain of runs, as Mayank Agarwal scored 108, Pujara, Jadeja and Rahane slammed half-centuries, while Kohli helped himself to a career-best 254* before taking pity on opposition bowlers and declaring.
Meanwhile, South African batsmen seemed to have no answers to Umesh Yadav and Mohammad Shami’s pace and the spin and guile of Jadeja and Ashwin, as they found themselves 139/7 at one stage, with only Du Plessis making 64.
Iceland cricket’s Twitter account took a savage and brutal dig at the South African players’ inability to focus at the moment. They blamed the non-focus of players due to them having only 20 days left to sign a Kolpak deal with English cricket counties, as dig at how many Proteas players have left international cricket for England.
They tweeted, “In fairness to South Africa, their players may be finding it hard to concentrate on this series. They only have 20 days left to get Kolpak contracts with the counties. #INDvSA”
With The Brexit about to happen on October 31st, the ECB might end the Kolpak contract system which allows citizens of countries that had free trade treaties with the EU and were part of European Union Association Agreements, to work in any EU country and this applied to cricketers as well.
This has led to many South African players choosing to forego international careers in order to take up the much lucrative and stable careers in English country cricket. This is also because of the quota system in Proteas cricket, which has led to the exodus of many white cricketers from the system. Simon Harmer, Colin Ingram, Hardus Viljoen, Kyle Abbott, Rilee Russouw, Marchant de Lange, Duanne Olivier, and Wayne Parnell are just a few big names who left international cricket to play for county for better money and chances to ply their trade on the field.
