SA vs IND 2018: Du Plessis bats for better pitches after series victory

South Africa have an unassailable lead in the series of 2-0.

Du Plessis was unhappy with the Centurion pitch. (Getty)

South African skipper Faf du Plessis has voiced out his opinion after leading South Africa to their first series win in the new year against India.  The end of it was not memorable as he was fined for slow over-rate on the final day of the second Test match. 

"I was very concerned when I got here, leading up to the Test match. It looked not like a Centurion wicket that I know. That is a concern, to be honest. I am very honest about good things and when we get it right but it's also fair to comment on where we can get better. I believe this was an opportunity that we missed," said du Plessis.

"We can blame the groundsman but we also have to blame ourselves. We need a process where we make sure CSA has someone that looks after the groundsmen to get the right kind of pitches when we play against (different) teams. Not to make it ridiculous. We never wanted something ridiculous, we just wanted a pitch with pace and bounce. I think there is concern that we are not getting it right and this is not the first time - I can think of three or four occasions over the last 12 months. We need to be better as a collective. That's something I will be taking up and making sure we can improve."

Many believe that South Africa wanted to give India the most alien of the conditions post their whitewash when South Africa toured India in 2015.

Du Plessis termed the pitch condition as "touching on extreme" after the way the match panned out. The injury to Parthiv Patel was another highlight of the Test match. He was injured in the rib area by the steep bounce from Lungi Ngidi which caught Parthiv off guard. 

"For me the way to look at that is even the Indian batting line-up struggled in conditions where their spinners were much better than ours," he said. "Every Test match lasted three days and I think there was only one hundred. In this series, there have been times when it has looked tough, but there have been guys scoring runs and guys taking wickets, so there is always that battle between bat and ball. If you have that, for me it is a good wicket. If it is just dominated by seam or spin bowling then I think the wickets are excessive."

"It needed a lot of grinding, a lot of hard work and a lot of pushing ourselves for longer and longer, and that for me makes this Test match incredibly special. The previous one was more of a sense of excitement and the best one to watch but I take a lot of pleasure out of winning games like this, where the team needs a lot of heart and a lot of character and a lot of fight to make sure we get across the line. The conditions weren't the condition we would have liked but the conditions were there and we still need to win." Du Plessis said on the Centurion win. 

 
 

By Anshuman Roy - 18 Jan, 2018

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