Faf back where it all began

DESPITE being the central figure in a flare-up that set an intense World Cup quarterfinal alight in Dhaka a year earlier, Faf du Plessis arrived in Australia four years ago an innocuous presence.

Outside of Pretoria nobody really knew who the well-groomed former Affies boy was. In fact, a seasoned columnist wrote ahead of the 2012 tour: “Graeme Smith’s No 1-ranked team comes without the usual bench strength ... there is no specialist batsman in reserve.”

This anonymity allowed Du Plessis, who had yet to make his Test debut, to slip into hotels behind superstars like Smith, Jacques Kallis, Dale Steyn, AB de Villiers and Hashim Amla without too much of a fuss.

How things have changed with South Africa’s return to Down Under. In 2016, Du Plessis is now the leader of the Proteas and a stalwart in the batting line-up.

Hotel staff at the Intercontinental in Adelaide would also not have forgotten him in a hurry. It was here that an exhausted, but nevertheless elated, bleary-eyed Du Plessis returned after completing one of the most extraordinary Test innings of all time. He blunted the Australian attack for 466 minutes – that’s 14 minutes shy of eight hours – to save the second Test of that 2012 tour for South Africa. Having scored a century in the process, and to have done all this on debut, it is needless to say the celebrations carried on long into the night.

After the initial hesitation over the merits of facing Australia in a day-night Test, there is certainly a case of “pink-ball” fever permeating through the Proteas squad at present. It’s almost as if the novelty of playing in South Africa’s first Test under floodlights has awoken the child-like characteristics within the players, including Du Plessis.

“I haven’t faced or thrown the pink ball around, so it’s all pretty new to me. It will be nice to see how it plays,” he said. “I know some of the guys have pink balls in their kit, especially the bowlers.

“We’ve asked around a little bit and read the stuff other teams have been saying about the pink ball. I’ve got no expectations of it. I’m going in without any experience of it at all.”

Du Plessis will at least, though, have two opportunities to assess the pink ball in two floodlit warm-up matches prior to the Adelaide Test on November 24.