After the white-ball assignments in the ongoing tour of South Africa, Team India’s focus now shifts to the two-match Test series.
While Centurion is slated to host the opening Test from December 26, the second Test will be played in Cape Town from January 3.
With three days remaining for the first Test, a report published in PTI claimed that Centurion will witness heavy rain on the opening two days of the match. Other weather reports also indicate strong chances of rainfall at SuperSport Park and the series opener might end in a draw.
"Temperature will be super low, like 20 degrees. The temperature is now 34 and it will drop to 20. I don’t know what conditions will be like, whether we will get play on Day 1," Centurion pitch curator Bryan Bloy told PTI.
"Hopefully we will get some play and it will be cool on Day 3 and I don't know how much turn will be available."
Bloy believes that precipitation will make the conditions favourable for pacers in the last three days and batters will have a hard time.
"I can’t guarantee the forecast but if it remains under cover for the better part of the two days then that might be tricky to bat first, because its been covered for so long and hasn’t been rolled for so long, we don’t know how long we will have to get the field ready for play in current situation,” the curator stated.
"So if it’s a Day-3, 10 am start, it doesn’t give us much time, because it’s in the morning and you start playing at 10 and really three hours of cool weather and early morning will be tricky. If its covered for two days, I would presume bowlers would benefit from it," he added.
For Bryan Bloy, the idea is to prepare a typical Centurion wicket.
"Our goal is to stick to the characteristics, not do anything different or out of the ordinary. I want it to be typical hard wicket as per Centurion’s conditions.
"The wicket is quite green and we have got two more days and its hot, with a bit more rolling, it would lose a bit more colour, but I am happy that there is a thin even coverage of grass. Looks good."
When asked about the typical Centurion track, Bloy replied: "A typical Supersport Park wicket is slower on Day 1, little bit softer and as time goes by it gets a bit quicker and it gets variable.”
"For me, fourth day afternoon finish would always be fantastic but that’s out of my control. We prepare the stage and players will have to come out and put the show,” he further remarked.
(With PTI Inputs)
