India tour caused mental scars, says Faf du Plessis
RANCHI: A shrinking talent pool and the lack of foresight led to a young South Africa side being outclassed and leaving for home possibly with mental scars, said skipper Faf du Plessis after the 0-3 blowout in the three-test series.
India had more energy while fielding; it’s tough to say but they outfielded us, he said. And the “relentless ruthlessness” with which India piled on runs affected South Africa’s batting, said du Plessis here on Tuesday.
“It takes a lot of toll and that’s why you could see towards the end our batting was mentally weak. Your body is tired, your mind is tired and then you make mistakes,” he said. Speaking after him, India captain Virat Kohli had said: “If you let five minutes of negativity creep in, it’s a downward slide from there.”
“So for me, our next journey now is trying to make sure that we get a lot stronger mentally as a cricket team. If there’s work that needs to be done in that department, then so be it. A tour like this reveals that there’s a lot of mental scars that can happen and then it’s difficult to come out of that hole,” said du Plessis.
India’s seamers showed South
Africa’s fast bowlers how to bowl, said du Plessis. “The pace, the consistency, the skill, they outclassed us. There is learning for us in that when we are playing in the subcontinent our style of bowling is not successful,” he said.
It didn’t help that South Africa didn’t have a bowler who could make the ball skid on Indian pitches and hit the stumps like Dale Steyn, he said. “If you are missing the stumps a lot or bouncing it over, it is not as effective here.”
South Africa are now in a position similar to Australia when after Greg Chappell, Dennis Lillee and Rodney Marsh retired after the Test against Pakistan in Sydney in 1984.
“Perhaps we could have been a little bit smarter in planning the phasing out of our great players. Over the last year-and-ahalf, we have lost four of five Test players,” said du Plessis.
Steyn, AB de Villiers, Hashim Amla, Morne Morkel — stalwarts who were part of a mature and successful Test team — retired in the period du Plessis was referring to. “So it does feel like a lot of responsibility on my shoulders,” he said.
Also affecting rebuilding is the Kolpak deal that allows English counties to sign South Africans but not as overseas players.
“We are losing our experience in international cricket. But we are also losing our experience in domestic cricket. Guys that get left out of the South African team, go overseas. The pound is stronger than the rand. Even guys like Hashim Amla won’t be playing domestic cricket. Playing with him or Steyn or De Villiers is the greatest learning curve you can get,” he said.
Amla is likely to join Surrey on a two-year contract as a Kolpak player.
With Britain set to exit the European Union on October 31 that will change and du Plessis said that would benefit cricket in South Africa enormously. “Unless they find a loophole.”
SEAM BOWLING DEPTH
It is one thing to go to India and be beaten by spin; teams like South Africa would traditionally expect that, and that is what happened on their last tour in 2015. But for them to be so comprehensively out bowled by a seam attack in sub-continent conditions will be