South African cricketer –JP Duminy, on Tuesday, said that the Proteas camp is expecting a tough counter-attack from Virat Kohli and his Team during the six-match One Day International series, starting with the first ODI at the Kingsmead Oval on Thursday (1 January 2018).
As per Press Trust of India, Duminy told reporters, “India are a phenomenal ODI side and they’ve managed to compete in all conditions around the world. You don’t expect anything less from them. They have a few new faces and few young players but also a lot of talent.”
He further added, “They have been exposed to the IPL scene and they will be competitive in the series. Even though we won the first two Test matches, India competed and that’s what you want to see from high profile teams. India being the world’s No. 1 ranked team, you expect nothing less from them.”
It is Kwon the batsmen have struggled on bowler-friendly pitches during the Test series, but Duminy believes that the ODI pitches will be more batsmen friendly, adding “The pitches are going to be more batsmen friendly, I think. It’s probably going to be high-scoring games across the country. And that’ll obviously bring the teams closer together. The key fundamentals for me in One-day cricket are partnerships with ball and bat. The team that gets that right has the best chance of winning.”
Duminy, who was picked up by Mumbai Indians (MI) for IPL 2018, is looking forward to playing against his IPL teammates in the ODIs. He further said, “Obviously I have been part of the IPL for a number of years so playing against the Indian team, you do end up playing against a lot of your potential teammates in the IPL. But right now, you know you’re going to be competitive, you want to win and you want to put big performances against the opposition. I don’t think we will see anything different.”
Duminy signed off by saying, “But yes, in a few months time, we’ll be teammates (with Rohit Sharma at Mumbai Indians) and at that time, obviously it’ll be about putting the past in the past and concentrate on winning the IPL. I’m really happy to be back with the Mumbai Indians. It all started for me at Mumbai.”
