Proteas will skip tampering sledge
SOUTH African captain Faf du Plessis says his team won’t sledge Australia about ball tampering during the Proteas’ ODI tour, and he hopes his players get booed by hostile crowds.
Du Plessis insists there is no bad blood between the two sides despite Australian cricket plunging to its lowest depths during last year’s doomed Test tour of South Africa.
Steve Smith, David Warner and Cameron Bancroft were all handed lengthy bans after being found guilty of ball tampering on that tour.
The 34-year-old says it’s not in his team’s character to sledge, especially about something as serious as the ball-tampering controversy.
“I don’t think us as a team would go there,” du Plessis said ahead of the opening ODI against Australia on November 4 in Perth.
“Similar to, I suppose, the ‘ mint gate’ [that I was involved in]. Even when I played against a team, there was nothing like that [sledging]. It’s got nothing to do with the cricket — it’s in the past.
“In terms of what happened in Newlands, that’s in the past for us. For us, it’s business as usual.”
With the 2019 World Cup in England just seven months away, South Africa will use the tour of Australia to experiment with their squad. Du Plessis hopes his players will cop flak from crowds.
“I just go back to Adelaide when I walked out to bat in that night Test match and there were 60,000 people booing,” du Plessis said.
“That’s what makes home teams so challenging to tour — when you get to a place where the crowd is intimidating.”