Proteas desperate to put in a strong final shift in Test series before checking out of India tour

FAF du Plessis and Dean Elgar talked very strongly this week about not disengaging mentally from the Indian tour, which thankfully for this South African team is in its last week.

Putting a proverbial foot on the plane home is the big danger for the players facing a rampant Indian team in Ranchi. Anyone who’s travelled for any length of time beyond three weeks will understand, there comes a period, when you just miss home.

When you consider that Aiden Markram had been in India since August 17, him punching a “solid object” and fracturing his wrist is understandable. Markram had just been dismissed for a duck in the second innings of the second Test, TV replays showed the decision was wrong, but there was nothing he could do about it then, and in his frustration he lost the battle with that “solid object”.

Test cricket examines you like few sports can, and as Elgar pointed out, India adds to that mental toll. “You get stretched as a person, you get stretched as a cricketer,” Elgar said of touring India.

Checking out mentally is the easy option. However Elgar and Du Plessis claim they and their teammates remain motivated to take something out of a series in which they competed well for a few days in the first Test, before getting overwhelmed in conditions which really should have suited them in the second.

That pounding in Pune will have left scars, and the prospect of the trip home to start soothing them will understandably be on the players’ minds. “We are a very proud nation,” said Du Plessis. “It’s important the guys don’t feel there’s one week left in India, and are almost on the plane to South Africa.”

There are, as he highlighted, points up for grabs in the new ICC Test Championship, but from a superficially strategic perspective also the need to just play better, that must serve as motivation for the South Africans. Getting big first innings runs is one goal Du Plessis has set the batting unit, on what he described as a “dry and crusty” pitch in Ranchi.

“First innings runs are going to be vital,” said Du Plessis, who added that there will be “some changes” to the South African batting order, one of those enforced because of Markram’s departure.

Thus far India have made five hundreds to South Africa’s two so there is one gap the Proteas need to close immediately.

And on the bowling front, they’d like to get 20 wickets. In total so far in the three innings India have batted they’ve lost just 16 wickets and at least half of those were given away in the search for quick runs in both Tests.

That South Africa’s spinners would struggle is understandable – there are no better players of spin bowling than India, but the fact that the home side’s seamers have outbowled Vernon Philander and Kagiso Rabada, will be deflating for the egos of the highly rated South African pair. Rabada’s four wickets have come at an average of 50, and Philander’s two at 77.50. By comparison, Mohammed Shami has taken eight wickets at an average of 20, and Umesh Yadav, six at 9.83.

Ranchi will present the South Africans with arguably the toughest examination many of the players would have faced.

“It’s tough when you are losing,’ said Du Plessis “We are very, very competitive people, it dents your confidence, international sport is supposed to be hard. The guys who’ve been at the top will tell you it comes with ups and downs, personally and from a team point of view. We have to fight our way out of these two losses. We can’t expect things just to happen, it won’t happen, because India is a very powerful team at the moment.”