After their failure in the second innings of Vizag Test, South African batsmen once again faltered under pressure in the first innings of second Test against India in Pune.
In reply to India’s colossal 601/5 (declared), the visitors were reeling at 197/8 at Tea on Day 3. None of the batters barring skipper Faf du Plessis (64) managed to touch the 50-run mark. In fact, four of the top five batsmen got out in the single digit.
Umesh Yadav (3/32), Mohammad Shami (2/33), Ravichandran Ashwin (2/49) and Ravindra Jadeja (1/51) were among the wickets for the hosts.
Read More: Amol Muzumdar hoping to make South Africa coaching stint count
Disappointed with Proteas batsmen’s struggle, former opener Herschelle Gibbs took a dig at Amol Muzumdar, who was appointed as South Africa’s batting consultant for the India series considering his experience and knowledge of the local conditions.
“And we heard such good reviews about the local batting consultant,wonder what his thoughts are,” Gibbs wrote on his official Twitter page.
South African batsmen might not have made a drastic improvement under his coaching stint thus far, but Muzumdar’s CV as a batting coach is quite impressive.
The 44-year-old, who had a two-decade-long first-class career that saw him pile on more than 11,000 runs at an average of 48 with 30 hundreds, has received high-performance coaching certificates from the BCCI, Cricket Australia as well as in the UK through both Lancashire and Yorkshire.
Amol's previous coaching assignments saw him shepherd batsmen in the Rajasthan Royals camp during the last IPL season, besides coaching the India under-19, U23 sides at the National Cricket Academy and working with the Netherlands national side.
